Ocean in a Cup

Bulls Eye Shooting & Paradise

2012-02-13T15:42:00.000-08:00

I don't have much fodder for a post today, but I still wanted to touch base with my blog real quick. I also realized I'm not entirely sure what "fodder" means, so I'll be right back....

fod·der/ˈfädər Noun: Food, esp. dried hay or feed, for cattle and other livestock

Hmmm...I don't think I'm using that right. Oh well, moving on.

Friday night Teri and I attended a bulls eye pistol-shooting class. The class required participants to shoot 22 pistols, which are normally incredibly easy to work with because they're lightweight and have virtually no kick. But we had to shoot them one-handed, and that is a skill I have never practiced before. I guess I've never seen a need for it, considering if an intruder were to break into my house, I'd have no problem pelting his ass with bullets using BOTH of my hands. Anyway, I figured as beginners we'd get to start off with targets maybe twenty feet away, but nope. Our coaches rolled our targets fifty feet away. With my blurry contacts, I could barely even see it. But the range officer was really reassuring, telling me that as long as the bullets went "THAT way" (pointing downrange) and "not THAT way" (pointing to the spectators), then it was all good. All in all, the class was so incredibly fun. Each woman participant was assigned her own personal coach, and the coaches were very patient and funny. The actual shooting was very regimented and took place in five timed rounds. By the end, we had to be able to shoot five shots in ten seconds with one arm (ideally hitting said-target). Oh yeah, the coaches also fed all of us girls dinner first so we wouldn't have to shoot hungry. Way cool.

Other than that, I've spent this weekend painting, working out, running errands, and watching movies with Clint. Oh, we've also eaten sushi about four times this week. I'll be blaming Becky when we go bankrupt because we can't seem to curb our addiction for the stuff, since she was our original sushi-enabler.

This is Trinity's all-time favorite song, and I promised her I'd put it up on my blog so she wouldn't have to keep hunting it down on YouTube. I don't care for lyrics on screen (I like to listen to the words, not be accosted by them), especially when they write out each 'oooh' and 'lalala', but she loves singing along with songs, so she picked this one out. Here you go, Trin. :-)

My favorite line: "I know the sun must set to rise."

5K and Siri

2012-02-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

Ever since I acquired a student teacher, I've been in complete bliss. I'll go into more detail about that another time, but the short version is that with her taking over so much of my grading, I actually have a life on Saturdays and Sundays. Friday afternoon was the first time in five-and-a-half years that I left work completely empty-handed. It felt awesome.

On Saturday morning, Clint's mom and sister talked me into running with them. They're training for a 5K Run taking place in April, and they've been trying to convince me to sign up for it too. I said "no," but I told them I'd go ahead and train with them.* I don't mind the extra exercise, but I don't want to have to worry about getting up at the break of dawn on a Saturday for the event itself. So they came to my house on Saturday morning and we walked from my house to my work. Once there, we ran around the track eight times (two miles), and then we walked back home. All in all, it ended up being three miles of walking/running. They sort of tricked me, because I thought that we were going to lap the track four times, not eight. After we finished our laps, they acted all innocent about it, saying, "Oh, we didn't tell you that we planned to practice the whole 5K?" My legs have been throbbing for two days since.

Saturday afternoon we went out for sushi with Clint's family for his birthday. His real birthday is actually tomorrow, but Saturday was the only day that everyone was free. The place we went to was way off the beaten-path and had incredibly delicious food and a really nice atmosphere. We're definitely going back soon. On Sunday morning we went shopping, and that's when I fell in love with this:

This is the recently-released iPhone 4S. My Droid is over two years old now and is starting to freeze up, and Clint's having similar issues with his, so we decided that it was time to browse around for a new phone. I played around with a lot of different phones in the Verizon store, and this one was by far the one I loved the most. What made it stand out was the fact that it has Siri, which is something you can't appreciate until you've actually experienced it. Me and this iPhone conversed with each other for twenty minutes, talking about local restaurants, the weather, etc. We also texted people (with my voice alone--never touched the keypad), looked up stuff on Google images, and so on. She--IT--understood every command I issued. It was amazing. I told her (it) "Remind me in two minutes to wash my hair," and she said "Okay. I will remind you to wash your hair." Two minutes later, the phone buzzed with a reminder that said: "Wash your hair." I must be old-school, 'cause this was like Star Trek technology. Of course I guess nowadays Star Trek is actually old-school.

Here's a quick clip from Big Bang Theory that shows the way Siri interacts with the phone user:

Of course, in the actual episode, Raj ends up developing romantic feelings for Siri, and is looked upon very strangely by all his friends when he starts dating a phone app.

Despite my infatuation with this phone, I was going to wait a month or two before actually buying it, but as dumb luck would have it, I won a Super Bowl pool at my work. My coworkers passed around a table that consisted of 100 squares, and it cost $5 a square to participate. I bought one square, and I remember when I chose the one that I did, "T" (the one running the pool) looked at me skeptically and said, "You do know how this works, right?" Each square had a score assigned to it, and mine was Giants 9, Patriots 0. That seemed like an odd one to me too, but there wasn't a lot of squares left to choose from. Four people total win; once for the quarter, the half, the third quarter, and the end of the game. Well by the end of the first quarter, the score was 9 to O (Giants), so I won the first quarter. By halftime, the score was 10 to 9 (Patriots), but once you reach 9, the numbers start from 0 again (the 1 is dropped), so I won AGAIN. Overall I ended up winning $200, and everyone at my work made it clear that I'm buying them pizza this week. Last night, in light of my winnings, Clint got online and ordered me the iPhone. I told him I'll be the guinea pig; if after a few weeks we both still like it, he'll get himself one too. I also ordered this cover:

I love the classy look of the iPhone covers.

I have more I could blabber on about, but I have an early staff meeting tomorrow morning, so I better try to get some sleep.

*Right after finishing this post, I signed up for that damn 5K in April. *defeated sigh*

Set Fire to the Rain

2012-02-03T21:47:00.000-08:00

Great week, but my head feels like it's splitting into two pieces right now.

Here's another recent hit by Adele. I just love her voice...it's so rich and full of emotion. I dedicate this one to my fellow teacher, Tilli, assuming she can pull her head out of "Rolling in the Deep" for two seconds. ;)

We Broke Disneyland

2012-02-01T20:35:00.000-08:00

Hi blog! I'm grumpy right now, so I thought if I started with a cheery greeting, it'd make me feel more cheery. It didn't work. Still grumpy.

Our weekend at Disneyland was a lot of fun, although by day two I was feeling pretty tired. I didn't know at the time that I was coming down with the flu...I just thought sleep deprivation was taking its toll. Anyway, Clint and I arrived in Anaheim on Friday night. His family and the kids were at California Adventure, so we went out to dinner. Originally we were planning to go to House of Blues, but on our way to Downtown Disney (we walked from our hotel) we passed Bubba Gumps, and we couldn't resist. We both love seafood. Our dinner was awesome, but way too expensive. We did cocktails and dessert too, which added to the exorbiant cost...I still cringe at how much we paid for one meal.

Friday night was a rough night of sleep. Clint is a naturally restless sleeper, but you put that boy on a hard bouncy hotel mattress and he's about as relaxed as a pissed off humming bird.

Saturday morning we all woke up at 7:00 a.m. and headed to California Adventure for the races. Once Trin was in her starting area, Disney TV came up to her with all of their cameras and asked if she minded being interviewed. This was so exciting for her! Of course she agreed, and they asked her questions such as "How are you feeling about the race?" and "What place are you going to come in at?" For that second question, she immediately replied "23." The reporter laughed and said, "Wow, that's awfully specific!" Once her race started, Trin was off like a bullet, and she stayed right near the front for the entire race. Her and another boy crossed the finish line at the same time, and we discovered later that they were #22 and #23. Trinity had correctly guessed her position across the finish line...it was crazy. There were 323 kids total in Trin's race, so #23 put her in the top 7% of her group. I am SO proud of her, especially considering she's an eleven year-old who was racing against thirteen year-olds, and she hadn't trained for the event. Next year she hopes to actually prepare herself better.

Elijah's race was next, and he, too, did an awesome job, staying near the front for the entire race. The only thing that annoyed the hell out of me was the fact that Disney didn't track his group. Apparently for seven and eight year olds, they don't think it's a good idea to have winners. So everyone in his race participated just for fun. Thankfully next year he'll be eligible to run in Trin's race, where the kids can actually experience the feeling of reaching for something, possibly failing, and actually surviving the experience no worse for the wear. Gee, imagine that. Remember in our generation, we could actually fall on our asses and it was just a part of growing up and building this little thing called character and perserverance?

After the races, we left California Adventure and spent the rest of the day at Disneyland, where every ride we walked up to broke down and had to be shut down temporarily for maintenance. Went to ride Space Mountain; it broke. Next was Thunder Mountain; it broke. Next was Pirates of the Caribbean; it broke. That one really had me perplexed because how do you break a ride that's nothing more than a bunch of floating boats? In addition, Small World and Matterhorn were both closed all day for maintenance. Ultimately, with the exception of the last two, we were able to get on all of those rides (we were very determined), but wow was it giving us a complex. At one point of the day we climbed on the Tom Sawyer raft to go to his respective island (now renamed "Pirates Cove" or something like that), and some other passengers overheard us talking about the bad luck we were having with rides. This lead to a verbal mutiny as passengers threatened to kick us off the raft before we broke THAT too.

Despite all of the ride issues, we still had a great time. My favorite part was seeing Elijah ride Space Mountain for the first time. He was so nervous but tried hard to not let it show. When he lowered himself into the ride, he got real quiet but kept smiling as much as possible. It was really cute. Once the ride was over, he was bouncing around with adrenaline and excitement that he had actually conquered the ride.

That night, on the ride home from Disneyland, I started to feel sick. Once home, I had a fever and felt a bit woozy. The next day (Sunday), I spent the entire day sick on the couch. I only bring this up because last Thursday, I wrote the following sentence in my blog:

"On Sunday, I will be laying comatose on my couch, physically ravaged from two amusement parks and possibly sick with the flu."

Next time I'll leave the predictions to Trin--hers are much more fun than mine.

Guest Post: Five Ways I Stay Sane as Teacher

2012-01-30T16:16:00.000-08:00

Teaching is such a rewarding career. It is also one of the craziest. I’ve heard of people who make a job out of “extreme skydiving” or “extreme rock climbing,” but I’m almost certain that these jobs can’t get any more extreme than teaching. When I first started, I often felt like I was in the midst of a category five hurricane. I never really felt in control. Today, it’s a different story.

It took some time, but eventually I learned how to manage my classroom and find my Zen. This came from learning though my own experiences and taking advice from other teachers. This job may have tried to break me down in the beginning, but by practicing a few habits, I now stay calm in the eye of the storm.

As others did for me, I would now like to offer my own advice on how to stay sane as a teacher:

1. Keep a diary: This could be because I teach English, but I discovered that when I wrote about a day that didn’t go particularly well; the day never sounded half as bad when I read the diary entry back to myself. I have dozens of diaries now. It’s my way of purging bad feelings and thoughts.

2. Bring the comforts of home to my classroom: The floors in my classroom are tile, which seem very cold and hard. To warm up my space, I purchased a colorful yet durable rug and placed it under my desk. I also placed a few framed family photos, a pretty lamp and a radio on the bookshelf behind my desk. This turned the classroom into my classroom which, for some reason, gave me a greater sense of comfort and control.

3. Stay healthy: Teaching is a pretty germy job, and the stress can beat your immune system down even more. After a few bouts of the cold virus, I realized that I needed to start taking better care of my body. I now take a daily multivitamin with extra Vitamin C and try to work out at least four times a week. I also stopped drinking coffee all day. After my morning cup, I only drink water the rest of the day. I’m not saying this prevents sickness, but I definitely feel better than before.

4. Keep reading (or keep practicing a hobby): I teach English, because I love reading and writing. However, when I first started working, I became inundated with my lesson plans and didn’t write or read a new book for at least 14 months. This actually hurt my students, because I was losing the passion I had for the subject. Now, once I finish a book, I move on to another one, and I write in my diary nearly every day.

5. Keep work at work: I found that when I brought my work home, I never took the time to escape from my job and enjoy my family and hobbies. Even if it means staying later, I now try to finish all work at school before going home.

Another thing I had to do was learn how to let go and realize that no teacher is perfect. Honestly, once I came to that simple realization, most of my anxieties disappeared.

By: Lori Hutchison

Lori Hutchison teaches high school English and owns the site: http://www.mastersinteaching.net/. In her spare time, she enjoys writing guest blog posts about various topics of interest; especially teaching!

Up Next: Guest Blogger

2012-01-30T16:06:00.000-08:00

I was contacted recently by the administrator of the website Masters in Teaching, who wanted to know if I would be interested in accepting a guest post from her on my blog. I've never featured a guest blogger before, but I'm definitely not unfamiliar with the process, so I thought, "Sure, why not?" I just finished reviewing her informative article (which offers tips for teachers trying to maintain their sanity) and gave her the green light to publish it on my blog, so the entry that follows this one will be her guest post. That being said, without further adieu, I'd like to introduce you to my guest blogger, Lori Hutchison.

(Well there might be a little bit of adieu, but not much).

Two Parks and a Flu

2012-01-26T22:31:00.000-08:00

I'm going to be swamped for the next few days, so I'm trying to squeeze in a couple things before I desert my blog for the weekend.

First, I might have a guest blogger post an entry in the next day or two--possibly earlier. If I do, I'll write a quick entry to introduce her, lest her post look like I was the one who wrote it.

Second, I had just reached my prep period this morning when I got a phone call saying that Elijah was throwing up all over the place. Awesome. So I had to pick him up and spend the rest of this beautiful, sunny day cleaning up blankets and pillows and feeding him soup. It wasn't terrible though; he is such a sweetheart when he's sick and the nurturer in me loves to take care of him and make him feel better (minus the puking-part). Plus I did get some painting done. And my student teacher was able to take over my classes, so I didn't even have to scramble to come up with emergency lesson plans for a sub. Of course my lesson today involved PowerPoint, graphic organizers, a class skit, and sign language...but I'm sure she did just fine.

Third, we're going to Disneyland for two days. The kids are participating in the "Tinkerbell Races", an event that is generally held at Disney World. This year, Disneyland is holding their first annual version of the race, and Clint's mom signed Trinity and Elijah up to participate. This should be interesting since my son was vomiting like something from the Exorcist all day today, but he swears up and down that he feels better now. Clint's family is leaving in the morning tomorrow and spending the day at California Adventures, but Clint and I won't be able to drive down there until I get off of work. If all goes well, we'll arrive sometime around 5:30 or 6:00. We plan to have dinner on our own at House of Blues in Downtown Disney, and then meet up with the rest of the family. We got a giant suite at the Disneyland Hotel, which is a completely new experience for me. I think I'm more excited about the suite than the amusement parks. On Saturday morning, we will be attending the Tinkerbell Races at California Adventure, and then heading over to Disneyland, where we will spend the rest of the day.

On Sunday, I will be laying comatose on my couch, physically ravaged from two amusement parks and possibly sick with the flu.

Student Teacher and Deadly Doors

2012-01-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day with my student teacher! Wait--did I ever talk about that? Hold on, let me go check----

Okay, I'm back, and from what I can see, I never explained the whole student-teaching thing. I'll make this quick. Student teachers are university students who have just finished their credentialing classes, but they now need "on the job training" in order to apply for their credential. They are assigned to work with a master teacher for an entire semester. In the beginning, they start off by observing only, but little by little the master teacher relinquishes control of the lessons and classroom management to the student teacher (that part is a little scary for the control-freak in me). My principal asked me if I would like to be a master teacher for the second semester of school, and of course I agreed. It was such a complement to be asked...it's not like principals choose the crappy teachers to represent their schools.

So today I met my student teacher for the first time (since I might talk about her again in the future, I'll dub her S.P). S.P's a little on the shy side, but after introducing her to several different teachers and talking her ear off all day, she did start to warm up. She's supposed to be in on everything I do as a teacher, so that's going to take some getting used to. I love the solitude of coming into my warm classroom in the morning, turning on my iPod, making a cup of hot tea, and checking my e-mail. It's that quiet before the storm. Now I have to come into my classroom in the morning and make small talk with another person. It's not a bad thing, it's just a break in routine that I'm going to have to adjust to. Honestly, it feels like going from living alone for a long period of time, to suddenly having a room-mate. There are lots of benefits to having a room-mate, such as always having someone to talk to and the general feeling of camaraderie; but it still takes time to acclimate to such a huge change. Even the physical environment of my classroom has changed. I had to pull out a row of three desks in order to fit in a nice, large teacher's desk for S.P, which resulted in some tweaking of my seating charts. That was something I did out of the kindness of my heart--I figured since she was going to be with me for the rest of the school year, she'd like to have her own space. I stocked it with a bunch of supplies (pens, post-its, etc.), and even made her a name plate. I also had my students make her a giant "Welcome" card on Friday, and they all wrote really sweet messages on it. That gave her a huge smile this morning. Overall, I really like S.P. and I'm excited to have her in my classroom for the rest of the year.

On a somewhat related note, I've had a few accidents in my classroom the last seven days. Last week, as I left my room, a student (thinking I was another student) slammed the door on me HARD. When I reeled back from the impact and he saw it was me, he was immediately sorry. He had been trying to play a prank on one of his fellow classmates. But I still had to give him a referral because it was a purposeful act that could have caused injury (I was wearing boots that day, or else it would have thrashed my toes). On Friday morning Ms. Whatsit's tail got trapped in-between two desks while students were cleaning up, and when a student shifted his desk, it squished her tail and ultimately she lost the tip. That was a gory little mess. She's healing up nicely though and should be back in the classroom this Wednesday. It's sort of cute because the students are SO concerned about her and ask about her every period. You would think it was their pet dog whose tail got circumcised.

Then today I slammed a student's head with the door. What is up with that door? It was right before homeroom, and I swung the door open to usher the remaining students inside the room. Adrian was inside the deadly red circle right behind the door, and it hit him head-on with a loud crack. I have no idea what he was doing back there, but the impact knocked him almost completely backwards. His friends were standing around and he immediately tried to play it off as "no big deal", but it was obvious that he was feeling dizzy as he walked into the room. I had him escorted to the nurse's office, despite his protests. I called ahead, and when the counseling department picked up, I said, "Hey C, it's Jodi. I just slammed a door into a student's head and--" but before I could finish, she started laughing so hard. I wailed out, "Wait, why are you laughing?!" And she's like, "It just sounds typical!" At any rate, Adrian is fine (parents planned to check for a minor concussion after school) and he has had a really good sense of humor about it. He was the same student that shifted the desk that cut off the rat's tail that...(I just wanted to say "that" one more time. It was beginning to sound like a nursery rhyme), so he claims that I was subconsciously wreaking my vengeance on him. I told him, "Yes Adrian, I sneakily peered out the window for twenty minutes waiting for you to walk up, hoping you would step into the red circle so I could clock you with the door." But I have to admit, it WAS fun telling students all day, "Hey, get crackin' on your work lest I decide to bean you with a door too."

And of course S.P. is watching all of this, taking notes. Glad I'm not privy to the conversation she'll be having with her university mentor later.

Inspiring Author and Commissioned Art

2012-01-17T22:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, get ready for a shallow intro here: Stephanie Dray is following me on twitter! See, one day she stumbled upon one of my witty tweets (haha) and thought, "Wow, here's a clever tweeter. I should follow this person."

You're not buying that story? Okay, fine. *sigh* Here's what really happened. I @mentioned her in such a way where I hoped she'd notice my existence and maybe click the follow button. And she did. Hey, I didn't say I was proud. Satisfied? Yes. Proud? No. Well, maybe a little.

Oh, in case you don't know who Stephanie Dray is....

In addition to being the writer of two intriguing novels ("Lily of the Nile" was her debut), she's just an altogether nice person. We went back and forth a few times on her blog last year, and she doesn't let the fact that she's a published author get in the way of having ordinary conversations with 'ordinary' people. As far as authors go, she's really becoming one of my inspirations.

In other news, I sort of alluded to this in a previous blog entry, but now it's official. I've been commissioned to do an oil-painting. It started because Shannon posted my oil paintings on facebook. One of her FB friends saw my artwork and asked Shannon if she could pay me to do a piece for her. Shan went ahead and referred her to me, and the rest is history.

This whole situation has created a few miniature dilemmas. The first thing I had to decide was if I even wanted to do a piece of art for payment. My dream is to be a writer--not a painter--so I can't really see what benefit there would be to taking up a project that would probably cause me more stress than it was worth. Also, my customer (for lack of a better term) wanted me to paint an image that I found disturbing, and that was something I really wrestled with (hence the question I posed on a previous post regarding compromising your taste/style for the sake of selling a piece). Shan helped me to settle the first dilemma by telling me "Sell one piece, just to say that you've done it". Well, the conversation went a little deeper than that, but that was the gist of it. Then a friend of mine helped me to solve dilemma #2 by explaining to me that selling art is a matter of economics. If I don't feel any passion for the project I'm working on, then it's up to me to decide if the money is worth the exchange of my talent and time, minus that passion. In a way, here's where art becomes a "job" rather than a pleasant way to spend your Saturday.

The customer in question--let's call her "A"--has been really awesome to work with so far. She decided to meet me halfway on her picture choice, and exchanged her first image with one that was much more palatable for me. It's still not my taste, but doesn't leave me morally unsettled like her first choice. And with the colors, shapes, and shadowing it involves, it could actually be fun. I'm charging 'A' $115 for an 18x24 painting, which is nothing when compared to my daily teaching wages. Shan and I figured that I should go cheap for a first sell, and $115 breaks down to 25 cents a square inch...can't go much cheaper than that. Now I know where the term "starving artist" comes from. Better not quit my day job.

You Are my Destiny and Nostalgia

2012-01-13T23:22:00.000-08:00

Trin and I just finished playing "Just Dance", and the girl is creaming me! I used to win her on every song, but somehow the tables have turned and she suddenly got GOOD. I need to sneak and practice while she's at karate or something.

This is hands-down my and Trin's favorite song to dance to on the game. It is so high-energy and fun. The original Jai Ho featured on "Slumdog Millionaire," but I like this version with the Pussycat Dolls much better. The video leaves a little to be desired, especially with the blatantly obvious Nokia promotion at the beginning, but it's not too bad.

Tomorrow Elijah turns eight years old. This particular birthday really snuck up on me, because he's still such a scrawny little guy with this little pip-squeak voice. I can't seem to stop viewing him as a five-year-old. I know it's cliche, but Elijah's birthdays always give me relentless waves of nostalgia. I just love him so much. I love cuddling with him, and I love the way he pummels me with bear hugs the second I come home from work. I love how hilariously witty he is every single day. He brings so much laughter and joy into my life, and it scares me sometimes how quickly these moments are speeding by.

For his birthday tomorrow, we're taking him to a snow-tubing park up in Lake Arrowhead. One of his favorite places to go to is Knott's Soak City, but we can never take him there for his birthday since it's in January. So we decided that the tubing park would be a good winter alternative. Same concept (either way, you're sliding down on inner-tubes), but the former has slides while the latter has hills.

For dinner, we're taking him to his favorite restaurant: IHOP. Shan and Jer will be there too, along with Carey and Teri, my mom and dad, and a whole bunch of kids.

*******

I got interrupted in sort of a funny way (too long of a story to share right now though), but now I'm back. Of course, now it's almost 11:30, and we're getting up early for our snow-tubing adventure tomorrow, so I guess I'm done after all.

Back to Work: Still in the Honeymoon Phase

2012-01-10T22:29:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to remember what #3 was the other day. Work, cameos, and...what?

I'll mention really quick that my first two days back to work have been pretty awesome. Of course, it's been only two days. It's possible that my students are still sleep-walking lethargians trying to recover from being on the swing shift for the past three weeks, and thus too tired to engage in their normal antics. But I'll take what I can get. I have also been in an inexplicably good mood these last few days. Even yesterday, when I was running on a few hours of sleep, I felt so upbeat. Long story short: I'm happy.

Wow, it's like being on break for three weeks slammed me right back into the honeymoon phase with my job. It's almost nauseating. In a few days, I'll be cringing at these words, rolling my eyes, and muttering "moron" at myself.

Off the work topic, my weekend was good. Thursday Becky and I went out to lunch. As usual, it was incredibly pleasant to relax with her over some greek salad and iced-tea, chatting about whatever. Friday I went somewhere, but I don't remember where. The end of break has been sort of a blur. On Saturday I went out to Sizzler with Teri. Sizzler's food is not the best, but I have a soft-spot for that place. Shannon and I used to go there on our birthdays when we were kids, and we always brought along our best friends at the time, Sam and Jackie. I still remember this one year, Sam grabbed a fortune cookie from the buffet (back when they actually had fortune cookies). She didn't like her fortune, so she went back and grabbed another one. She didn't like that fortune either, so she disappeared a third time. This time, when she came back, she had an entire plate full of what must've been forty fortune cookies. I remember I couldn't stop giggling as she tore through fortune after fortune, determined to get the "perfect" one. Okay, I'm digressing majorly here. I think I must get long-winded when I'm tired. Or sometimes I get long-winded just because I'm long-winded. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah. After lunch with Teri on Saturday, I visited with Julie for a couple of hours, which I loved. I always feel so comfortable and safe with Jewls.

I remember what #3 was! I was curious if an artist should ever compromise their own tastes/style for the sake of selling a piece. Two days ago I had my reasons for pondering that issue, but I'll have to explain later when I'm feeling more energetic. I'm losing steam with writing tonight.

The End of Winter Break and Cameos

2012-01-08T23:09:00.000-08:00

Three quick things.

First, I'm fighting off the blues right now because I start back to work tomorrow. I'm excited to see my coworkers again, and I do miss some of my students, but I'm dreading the heavy work load, the grading, the deadlines...all of that stuff. It'll all be fine once I'm back in the rhythm of things, but having three weeks off gives you that little taste of paradise, and it's depressing to give that up. Plus I'm definitely not looking forward to my alarm going off at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow when I've been staying up until 2:00.

Second, I'm suddenly attracted to cameos. It started two days ago because I'm painting a small cameo necklace into the project I'm working on for my mom, so I google-imaged a few of them to use as a reference. Looking through the various images, I started to feel intrigued by these little pendants.

Isn't that pretty? Well, I guess the woman's silhouette isn't exactly pretty. She looks "handsome" at best--but still...I love the vintage look of these things. Here are two more:

That last one is a little morbid, but I still sort of like it. It's like victorian meets goth. These are all cheapy ones, by the way (I looked them up on e-bay). I'm not sure how much a real cameo would cost, but I think I might look it up just for the fun of it. Assuming that there is a such thing as a "real" cameo...didn't they used to be made out of bone, or ivory, or something? Think I'll look that up, too. Not tonight though. Tonight I have to get lessons and such ready for tomorrow. Blech.

I had a third thing I was going to talk about, but I just looked at the time and realized it's after 11:00, so I better go get everything ready for work tomorrow. Have I said blech yet?

Entering 2012

2012-01-07T00:28:00.000-08:00

Yikes, I've had this post saved under "drafts" since January 3rd, and still haven't published it. Okay, New Year's Eve...here it is:

I'm a little sleepy but I still need to talk about New Year's, so this is going to be the short version. For New Year's we had a small get-together at our house with Shannon and Jeremy, Sarah, Becky and Steve, and almost all associated kids. Everyone showed up at our house between 7:00 and 7:30. For the first hour or so, we just hung out and chatted. After that, Becky and Shannon played a game of shot glass checkers, which was pretty damn entertaining to watch. As the name suggests, all of your checker pieces are actually shot glasses, and every time your opponent captures one of your pieces, you have to down the shot. Since it would have been sheer insanity to take that many shots, Becky's glasses contained red wine, and Shannon's contained margarita mix. Ultimately Shannon won the game, which meant more casualties for Becky to gulp down. That didn't sound right. I'm too tired to go back and fix it though, so moving on...

After checkers, we all played "Apples to Apples." I mentioned this already, but that game is so hysterical. And pretty screwed up too, depending on who the judge is for each round (I swear a little fear would enter my heart each time Steve judged). We played the game all the way until the countdown. During the countdown, we did our usual ritual of running outside and banging pots and pans. Afterwards, the kids wouldn't stop blowing their party whistles, so Clint stole them one by one and kept throwing them into the fireplace. Okay, I realize this sounds jacked up, but it was really funny. Shannon, in particular, was driving him crazy with her whistle, so he chased her down, grabbed her whistle, and chucked it into the fire. A minute later another one showed up in her mouth, so again they went tearing through the house, and whistle #2 ended up in the fireplace. Thirty seconds later she had another one. It was awesome. She had somehow found a magical way to make these things materialize from thin air, just to torment my husband. Later Elijah crept into the kitchen and asked, "Mom, where all the whistles?" to which I replied, "Sorry, Daddy burned them all."

After the countdown, Becky made a delicious champagne cocktail that tasted like butterscotch. We pressured her into giving a toast. About two minutes after saying "cheers", the power went out. The timing for the outage was more than a little amusing, just because it came right after the countdown (not to mention Becky's toast). We were all joking around about it being an omen of some kind. And naturally, Jeremy was sitting there hootin' and hollering about 2012 and the end of the world. Overall, the power was out for about an hour, I think, but with the fireplace lit and the massive quantities of candles we have in our house, it was never truly dark. It was actually very warm and ambient. I have to admit that I felt a little let-down when the lights finally came back on.

Once we had electricity again, everyone sort of lost steam and decided to watch a movie. Becky, Steve, Shannon, and Jeremy stayed the night, and like last year, Clint made everyone breakfast in the morning.

This was the short version. Makes me wonder what the long version would have been like. A tedious yawn-fest, I'm guessing.

I never came up with resolutions for this year. I'm still waiting to feel "resolved".

New Tattoo

2011-12-29T23:53:00.000-08:00

After a lot of research last night, I decided I wanted a cherry blossom branch as my new tattoo. I'm sure it's no coincidence that a cherry blossom branch happened to be the first real painting I did, too. I guess I must be partial to that particular tree. I also decided that I wasn't going to get some dainty little thing that was just going to be floating around in the middle of my ankle like my rose--uh uh; it was 'go big or go home' this time around. Today, we went to the tattoo parlor, and I told my artist (who was absolutely awesome--same guy who did Clint's) what I had in mind, and he was able to sketch out a design on my foot/ankle pretty quickly. Once I approved it, he got to work. It took almost exactly an hour-and-a-half. He had estimated two hours, so shaving that extra half hour off was sheer bliss.

The pain of getting this tattoo was much more intense than I expected, but maybe I'm just wimpier than I used to be. The top of my foot was the worst. The skin is so thin there, and there was just no barricade against that needle. Nonetheless, I held it together the entire time...I spent the entire time joking around with Clint and the tattoo artist, singing songs in my head, counting spots on the ceiling, etc. When the pain got real bad, I would just focus on relaxing my hands and arms (both of which kept tensing up), and I would try to imagine that they felt like water. For some reason, doing this temporarily took me away from the pain. One positive thing is that, although the first ten minutes is the longest (endorphins still waiting to kick in, maybe?), the time flies after that. Those ninety minutes felt more like thirty.

Okay, enough chatter. Here's the new tattoo....

My tattoo artist had just finished the tattoo when we took these pics, so my skin was still pink and raw. Now that it's nine hours later, the flowers have more white in them that makes them pop out more and look much prettier. The two largest blossoms closer to the top are what's actually covering up my old tattoo. Overall, I am SO happy with the final product! It's simple but dramatic. And other than some initial shock I'm receiving from the older relatives, I'm getting a ton of positive feedback on this one.

After leaving the tattoo parlor, Clint and I were both feeling pretty famished. Apparently self-mutilation works up an appetite. Steve was stuck at Starbucks all day waiting for his car to be fixed, so we decided to meet him for lunch. Much to my delight, he chose sushi (it's ridiculous how much I love the stuff now). Clint had never tried sushi before, and he and Steve both ordered the all-you-can-eat special and pretty much ate themselves into a coma. I, on the otherhand, ordered sane proportions of food, but that's neither here nor there. Overall, lunch was definitely my favorite part of the day.

Tomorrow I will be decorating Rose Floats in Pasadena from 1:00 p.m until 1:00 a.m (yep, A.M.!) with 25 middle schoolers and about 15 high-schoolers. Wish me luck!

Singing Feliz Navidad on a Train with Elves

2011-12-29T00:45:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot--before I can officially move past Christmas, I have to post about our trip on the Polar Express. A few days before Christmas, we went on a train ride from Filmore, California, to the North Pole. But as luck would have it, the North Pole was only a half hour away from our departure station. Here are a few pics:

Getting ready to board (we all wore PJs, in case that's not evident in the pic)

Me boarding the train (Moo took this one)

The conductor punching our tickets

An elf ("Sparky") reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Mike, Moo, Carey, Nettie, and Lucas

Teri, Trin, and Elijah

The boys looking all innocent (they were being rowdy seconds before)

Santa surprising the kids with candy canes

We also ate cookies and drank chocolate milk during our train ride, and sang a ton of Christmas carols. They actually gave us sheets of music so that we could make requests. There were a few off-list carols requested, such as Feliz Navidad, which was just damn hilarious because most of the passengers fudged the lyrics through the Spanish parts of the song, not really knowing the words. "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" was another funny one. When we got to the figgy pudding part of the song, people started changing the lyrics to "We won't go until we get some because we're selfish bastards who have a strange obsession with figgy pudding"...or something like that.

There was one part of the night where the thought occurred to me, "I'm singing Feliz Navidad on a train at night with a bunch of elves." I resisted the urge to pinch myself, because the whole thing seemed a little dream-like. Seriously, if you have even a little bah-humbugness around the holidays, this train would have been your worst nightmare.

Okay, now I'm done talking about Christmas.

Sushi, Tattoos, & Christmas

2011-12-28T17:30:00.000-08:00

I HAVE to do a "How Christmas went" post like, NOW. It's almost a sin to be the owner of a regularly updated blog and not have mentioned how the holidays went by now.

Okay, so I'll get to Christmas in a minute (haha, still procrastinating), but first I want to talk about the two things that are on my mind this very second. Be forewarned, they're both pretty shallow: #1. I tried sushi for the first time, and #2. Tomorrow I will probably be getting a tattoo.

So #1, the sushi thing...there's nothing exceptional about that except for the fact that I don't really have what I'd call sophisticated taste buds, so I was never sure if I would like it. I mean, it is raw fish, after all. But yesterday, Becky and I decided to go out to lunch, and she suggested a sushi bar. When I walked into the restaurant (which was beyond adorable), she was sitting at the bar and had already ordered us a bottle of this delicious rice-wine-stuff whose name I can no longer remember. You drink it with these cute miniature china cups, and I remember off-handedly trying to estimate how many thimble-sized glasses one would have to consume to get sloshed. Anyway, since I was new to the whole sushi experience, Becky ordered everything for us, and she couldn't have done a better job. Everything was so delicious. I'm actually craving more today. We stayed for over two hours, enjoying the different varieties of sushi, itty-bitty cups of wine, and good conversation. I also ordered a delicious hot tea that I think I must've downed eight cups of (ughhh, ending in a preposition. Might have to come back and fix that later). The only downfall to our lunch was the fact that I am clumsy with chopsticks, and the fact that I locked my keys in my car. I don't know how I managed that one, considering it has remote entry. When I called Clint to tell him that I had locked my keys in the car, he said "That's impossible." I was thinking, "Well, hmmmm....there's a set of keys sitting dead-center of the passenger seat that would beg to differ." He was a good sport about it though, and we used it as an excuse to treat ourselves to smoothies.

#2 is easy to explain. I have a small rose tattoo on my left ankle that I got on my 18th birthday, and I've been wanting to cover it up for years, but keep putting it off. I think I have a little commitment phobia when it comes to choosing a new tattoo to cover it up with (damn, another preposition-ending...that's a stupid grammar rule anyway). As one of my Christmas gifts, Clint made an appointment for me to get the new tattoo. I'm actually really excited about it (minus the whole needle-pounding-into-my-flesh-over-and-over-part), because this gives me the push I need to get it done. But, as of tonight, I still have no idea what I'm going to get, and the appointment is for 11:00 tomorrow. This should be interesting.

Christmas was so nice! Clint's family came over for Christmas Eve, and we had our usual pajama party and breakfast for dinner. Christmas morning we did our own nuclear family thing, and as usual, I think I was more excited to watch Trin and Elijah open up their gifts than they themselves were to open them. After presents and breakfast, we got ready and headed over to my parents house. Overall, it was an awesome day. I hate to define the day in terms of "what I got", but I really scored with the gifts this year. Clint gave me: the new generation iPod Nano (in pink--it is so tiny!), an iPod docking station that is constantly changing colors and is about the size of a tissue box, a set of twelve professional grade paintbrushes, a giant goldfish bowl (that one has a back story), one of my own paintings customized into a laptop skin, and of course the appointment to get my rose tattoo covered up. My grandpa sews, and he made me three "artist" aprons to wear when I'm painting. He also made me a beautiful cabinet for my bathroom (my grandpa is truly a Jack of all trades). In addition to all that, my grandma gave me my great-grandmother's old oil painting set, including an antique wooden carrying case. I didn't even know that my great-grandma painted, so it was thrilling to go through her set and see some of the things she was working on before she passed away. None of this includes the lovely gifts I received from the rest of my family, but it's going to get really boring if I just prattle on and on about gifts, so I'll stop here. Although I do have to add really quick that I got Shannon some new jeans, a new shirt, and a new pair of heels for Christmas. I only bring this up because when I opened my Christmas gift from her, it was new pants (really cute black dikis), a new shirt, and a new pair of shoes. We got each other the same gift. I swear, sometimes it's like we're twins or something.

The best part of Christmas was watching my grandma open up the willow tree that I painted for her. Her reaction went beyond my wildest expectations and almost made me cry. She was so thrilled, and it was just adorable. The second best part was playing Apples to Apples with the family. It's a pretty hysterical game. That, and eating prime rib for Christmas dinner, and drinking this delicious white chocolate coffee that my dad made. The whole day was just incredibly nice.

Okay, I did my obligatory post-Christmas entry, which means that I can actually start talking about other un-holiday-related things for my next post.

Thoroughbred Street & Goodbye

2011-12-16T20:55:00.000-08:00

Aside from the United Airlines dilemma (which we are actually starting to lose sleep over), the last couple of weeks have been crazy fun. On Wednesday night we went to a hockey game, which was a blast. Hockey games are awesome to watch in person, but added to the thrill was the fact that we went as part of a private party through Carey's work. Not only did we have the preferred balcony seating, but our party had an attached suite with our very own bar, pool table, all-you-can-eat food/drinks, and so on. Not to mention there were attendants all over the place taking care of our every whim. It's going to be tough going to a regular hockey game in the future after experiencing the high life. I'm going to be like, "Huh? I actually have to pay for these nachos?!"

Last week we went to a Christmas party down the hill (again, through Carey's work). It was awesome--the food was delicious and the people there were so friendly and upbeat. I remember I couldn't stop laughing the whole night. At around 8:00 p.m., everyone from the party walked down to Thoroughbred Street to check out the neighborhood's famous Christmas lights. Here are a few pictures, but obviously they don't do these displays justice.

Okay, I have to stop now before I end up plastering all 36 of them on here. It was cool, because a lot of the neighbors were actually on their lawns, selling coffee, hot chocolate, and other treats. And all the spectators were so festive and so much in awe. I'd love to do this again every year.

On Sunday night we met Alana at La Casita for dinner to say our final goodbyes. It felt bittersweet, but I think I held it together pretty well. I just kept reminding myself that I was trading a really great local friend for a really great long-distance friend. Alana will probably kill me for posting this, but here is the Christmas card she gave us when she left:

I had to post this, because Alana's words on the card sum up everything I feel about her, Matt, and the boys. But I have to say, as far as goodbyes go, the whole thing was a really positive experience. I think it's because we have every confidence that distance isn't going to be a deal-breaker for our friendship.

I'm still not caught up on everything I wanted to write, but this entry's getting on the lengthy side, so I'm going to go play Just Dance now and take a bath.

It Only Took a Decade...

2011-12-15T19:11:00.000-08:00

I finished report cards a couple hours ago and can't wait to start my break!  I'm so behind on this blog that it's probably going to take me a few entries to catch up, but for now, I'm just going to write about some news we just received.

Yesterday a Fed Ex package was delivered to Clint's parents' house from United Airlines. As I've mentioned in the past, Clint used to work for United Airlines at Chicago O'Hare eleven years ago, but was furloughed after 9/11. We always knew that "someday" he could get recalled, but after ten years, we had written it off. Until yesterday. After an entire decade, Fed Ex arrived with something we never imagined: Clint's recall notice. For Chicago. He now has six whole days to make a decision.

That being said, there's no way we're moving to Chicago. As much of an adventure as the Midwest was, I'll never go back. My life is here. But Clint talked to a union rep for United Airlines today, and was told that if he accepts the job in Chicago, he can put in a bid for LAX, which will soon be hiring as well. The downfall to all of this is Clint would initially have to work out of Chicago, and we really don't know how long it will take to get the transfer to L.A. I could be a single mom for a few weeks, or a few months, or...indefinitely, really. That's a little nerve-wracking. Another big downfall is that once he does get the bid for LAX, he will be dealing with a huge daily commute.  These pitfalls should be enough for us to just say "No thanks," but the pros to the job are pretty damn positive. Even though he worked for UAL for only one year, he would be returning to the job with eleven years of seniority and at full pay scale. In other words, he'd be making good money. Another huge advantage are the flight benefits. United Airlines employees and their immediate families can fly anywhere in the world for free. Of course it's standby only, but this never posed a problem for Clint and I ten years ago. There was always room for us, and 90% of the time we flew first class (they immediately upgrade employees to first class if there's extra seats available).

I honestly don't know what we should do.  I'm trying to figure out if the flight benefits and extra pay are worth the stress of an exorbitant commute and crummy hours (he'd be back on graveyards again, and most likely working 6 and 2s). Even with the ability to travel anywhere we wanted a decade ago and the associated fond memories, I don't remember that period of my life being entirely happy.

I have a lot of other things I want to write about (such as the fact that Alana and I said our final goodbyes), but I'll save it for my next entry.

Christmas Card 2011

2011-12-11T16:24:00.000-08:00

Still have no time to write, but I just finished making our annual Christmas card, so I wanted to post it real quick. I'll try to pay better attention to my poor neglected blog soon!

Wild Grapes

2011-12-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

I have so much I want to share from the last few days, but just can't seem to find the time. I'll try to come back on here tomorrow night and write a decent entry, but until then, I want to share a quick excerpt from Robert Frost's "Wild Grapes." On Saturday night I went out with Becky and Alana, and Becky had saved this poem on her phone because she wanted to share it with me. She said that the poem reminded her of me. I felt so touched that a poem would make her think about me, but even more than that, I absolutely love this stanza that she shared.

I had not taken the first step in knowledge;
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart--nor need,
That I can see. The mind--is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind--
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.

Okay, better entry to follow soon. Or if not "better", at least more long-winded.

Stereo Love, Cold, a Thousand Years

2011-11-27T17:30:00.000-08:00

We have some people coming over to look at our puppies in fifteen minutes, so I don't really have time to write a post, but I wanted to put up a couple songs.

This one keeps popping up on my Pandora, and it's slowly growing on me. Probably because I've never actually heard an accordian sound so catchy before...it's sort of interesting and pretty.

These next two are both from the Breaking Dawn soundtrack. This first one has a very eerie, haunting melody. I still haven't made up my mind as to whether I like it or not, but it's been stuck in my head for two days now, so I must like something about it.

This last one is my favorite. The first time I heard the song, I thought it was "alright," but now after hearing it half a dozen times, the romantic in me just loves it. The video, too, is beautifully executed.

Entertaining Hillbilly Style

2011-11-27T00:48:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Alana and I had plans to meet for lunch, but she brought along a surprise visitor: Matt! He had spontaneously driven up from Northern California for the Thanksgiving weekend, and he decided to crash our lunch with a surprise visit. It was awesome. After lunch, we all headed back to our place. Now keep in mind that we hadn't planned on entertaining company, so...some of our activities included:

Relaxing on the loveseat...in the middle of the lawn

Attempting to take 70's vintage photos

Playing the keyboard on the porch in the dark

(I'm sure the neighbors loved Matt's rendition of Bad Romance)

Playing peek-a-boo through the window

Dancing machismo-style

And staying warm
(have I mentioned yet that this in the dark, in the middle of a lawn?)

We also played Just Dance "Club Style." That's where you turn out all the lights, turn on some laser lights, and try to follow the dancers on the screen with your Wii remotes, but people keep jumping in front of you with their own impromptu dancing and it really jacks up your score. I can get an official rule book if anyone's interested. ;-) Luckily no one took the time to capture this particular event on camera (thank God). Here are a few more random pics (I just love the first one):

I'm not sure what happened with that last picture, but I sort of like all of that alien-green. Alana took most of the pics from last night (which is why she's only in one of them), and she has this interesting little app on her phone that makes the photos look like 70's era Polaroids. That's why several of these photos have the white border around them, and/or the warmer colors. I might have to hunt down this application for my own phone...it does a great job of capturing those good ole' nostalgic hillbilly moments.

Pre-Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T22:08:00.000-08:00

I had such a nice time tonight! The kids and I just got back from a pre-Thanksgiving day dinner at my parent's house. My grandma and grandpa were also there, along with my step-sister Amber and her boyfriend. My dad recently acquired a full-size casino poker machine from a side job he did in Pahrump last month, so of course we all went crazy playing on that thing. At one point I walked into the room, and he was teaching Trinity and Elijah how to play video poker. I was like, "Awwww, that's so precious. Now my kids are going to be gambling away their tooth fairy money." After piddling away all of our nickels (I think I'm down $1.25), we had spaghetti for dinner and then played on the Wii. I got my mom to play Just Dance for the first time, and that was hilarious. Now I see where I get my lack of coordination from.

Here's me and Shannon with my mom and dad at the Trunk-or-Treat last month. I think this is the very first photo of the four of us that I have ever put on this blog (and of course my mom just happens to be wearing some bloody, gruesome apron). I'm really going to miss all of them tomorrow.

I think I might give Grimm another try now. Okay, here goes. Eeeeeeeek. Wish me luck.

Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving!

Played Again and Puppies

2011-11-21T18:19:00.000-08:00

As I started to mention earlier, I'm officially on Thanksgiving break this week. Normally this fact would have me in a state of euphoria, but I have such a huge stack of literary response essays to grade that it's hard to feel like I'm on break. I graded the essays for my honor's class already, and theirs alone took me three days. With two more classes to go, I can just see the grading stretching out in front of me for miles...and miles....

But still, it's great to be on break, even with the grading. I slept in until 8:15 this morning and it felt so nice. Today Trin and I enjoyed our testosterone-free day, and that was really cool. We watched Julie and Julia. I've heard good things about the movie, but I personally thought it dragged out a little too long. Plus I don't care for how it ended, but I guess that's the crux of true stories. The one thing I could completely connect with though was the main character's desire to be a writer. I actually got tears in my eyes when she received all of those messages on her machine from editors and publishers who were interested in publishing her work. It must be an amazing moment...that precise minute in life where suddenly everything you have ever dreamed of comes true.

Speaking of writing, I deleted this poem from my blog last week (I think), but now I'm putting it back. I don't care if it makes me sound like I'm moody or overly-dramatic. This time it's staying. Note to Self: Quit caring what you "sound like" when you write.

Played
You painted the possibility
Yet I never told
You put it on the table
Impassioned and bold
You said you’d bear the burden
I refused to fold
Despite your calculated words
that spun a fool’s gold

Now, you run away,
covering your face
And strand me here,
burning in our disgrace
How simple you are, to
think you can erase
The rips and stains
you wreak upon lace

So cloak yourself in shame,
and leave me to dwell
In this empty place where
you played me so well
‘Cus even amidst your
cowardly-lade hell
I protect you, and will
never ever tell.

Have I mentioned lately how inundated my house is with puppies? There are puppies all over. Everywhere I walk, I'm followed by a trail of puppies, chewing my toes. Or I'm tripping over puppies. Or I'm saving them from whatever little contraptions they've gotten stuck in. And ever since we switched them to puppy chow (about three days ago), they're plopping little land mines on the floor like every fifteen minutes. Thank goodness we no longer have carpet! Since we've lost both Calzaghe and Lily (damn animal control), we decided we're going to keep one of the puppies. His name is Yang. He's adorable...I'll post a picture of him soon.

Oh, I forgot to mention that with the money raised from our Top Turkey fundraiser, my club was able to provide Thanksgiving Day feasts to 22 local families! Everything including the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies, sweet potatoes, and ingredients for pumpkin pie. SO worth all of the work!

Cry for You

2011-11-21T11:58:00.000-08:00

The boys are gone today, and I'm supposed to be grading (even though I'm on break), but Trin talked me into some long-overdue girl time. So she's on Netflix right now picking out a chick-flick, and I'm going to pop us some popcorn and make some hot chocolate (too bad she's not old enough for margaritas).

I'll add more to this post later (or maybe do a completely new one). Until then, here's a good chick song.

Done with Floors and Dream Couch

2011-11-19T15:41:00.000-08:00

Our flooring is done! We also replaced our old couch and loveseat with new ones. Here are some pics of our new living room:

I love the new floors! They make the whole house feel more airy. I'm also thrilled with the new couch and loveseat, which is good, because they were a pain in the ass to find. The problem is I wanted something lighter in fabric to brighten up the room, but it also had to be made from durable, pet/kid-friendly fabric. Plus I wanted something pillowy (spell check is throwing a hissy fit over that word)...basically a couch that feels like a giant marshmallow. Clint's wish list included built-in recliners, so that made our ideal couch even more difficult to find. We went to six or seven different furniture stores to find what we were looking for, but ultimately had to special order this one to get everything we wanted. The fabric is microsuede, so anything that spills on it wipes right off. There are two built-in recliners in both the couch and the love-seat (four total), not to mention two cup holders and a built-in center console that's big enough to store two full-size laptops. I'm not kidding, this thing is our dream couch.

Curling up in the Kitchen

2011-11-17T17:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had one of those days where you come home feeling like pureed jello. It's been a fun week, but my club's Top Turkey fundraiser has eaten up all of my prep periods, and has been a lot of work. During seventh period I was counting down the minutes until work was over...I felt so mentally drained. On my [ridiculously short] drive home, I kept imagining how great it would be to plop down on my couch with a cup of Earl Grey and watch some mindless TV. But when I entered my house, said-couch wasn't there. I followed it's trail to this location:

Yep, that's my couch. In the kitchen. Clint had taken another day off to do some more work on the floors, and he made amazing progress, but not without a few inconvenient side-effects. With nothing better to do (TV was unplugged and crammed on dining room table), I posted the following status on facebook:

My living room migrated a little. It's all good though, cuz now if I get thirsty, it's a mere arm's reach to the sink. And if I get cold, I can just turn on the oven.

I did still enjoy my cup of tea. And the fluorescents provided great lighting to chill with a book.

Today the living room is back to normal, which is sort of nice because if I decide to take a little cat nap, I no longer have to curl up between the dishwasher and stove. I'll post pics this weekend, once we have all of the trim back on the walls.

Pointless Housekeeping

2011-11-15T19:48:00.000-08:00

Today I came home from work and got a major itch to clean, which is really bad timing since our house is torn apart due to floor-installation. Right now our living room is about a third done, and all of our furniture is crammed on one side of the room, half-blocking the kitchen (you should see how snug I am right now, nestled with my laptop in-between a couch, coffee table, and shelf unit). So I told Clint that while he was at the dojo tonight, I was going to clean the house. He laughed and pointed out the futility of such an endeavor, but I didn't really care. When I get this sort of craving to clean, it's usually because I'm dealing with stuff at work that seem so never-ending and insurmountable that I just need the feeling of starting and completing simple tasks. It's a sort of therapy. So as soon as Clint and the kids left, I blasted the music and did the dishes, cleaned the counters, swept the floors, cleaned up our faux livingroom, lit some candles, and did some laundry. I even arranged the crammed furniture so it resembles a miniature living room...like the kind of display you see in the gallery of Living Spaces, or Ashley's Furniture in those moments where they don't have a semi-truck protruding through their front entrance. Now I'm sitting here in the middle of my clean house, trying not to laugh (or cry) at the fact that after all of my effort, there's still a tile saw in my living room, heaps of wood piled against the walls, a mountain of furniture crammed in front of the kitchen, and concrete under my feet. Oh well. I feel accomplished.

I was going to write more, but now I'm not (profound, I know).

11/11/11

2011-11-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know I've already blogged enough for one weekend, but I'm trapped in the ketchup and mustard room for an hour because Clint's watching "Grimm" in the living room, and I can't watch it. I'm a huge baby. I got through the first minute of it, but once the girl started shrieking in the background because she was being tortured by whatever wolf-creature whisked her away, my stomach started rolling and I had to get out of the room.

Change of subject. I'm currently reading Crossed by Ally Condie (sequel to Matched), and I am really enjoying it so far. It is completely different from the first novel. Matched was more light-hearted, shallow (in a cute way) and teen-agery, although it did get heavier towards the end. But this one dives much deeper into the characters' pasts, and their current motives. It's not that the story is incredibly riveting or action-packed...in fact, much of it is slower-paced. But it's thought-provoking and intriguing. Unrequited love in a tolitarian society just makes for a beautiful story. And considering that the novel is geared toward the young adult audience, I'm surprised by how many quotes from the book come across as pure poetry. Take these, for example:

And it is strange that absence can feel like presence. A missing so complete that if it were to go away, I would turn around, stunned, to see that the room is empty after all...

The picture frightened me and thrilled me in some vague way--the sky was so spectacular, the land so beautiful and dangerous, so full of heights and depths. I was afraid of the vastness of a place like that. At the same time, I felt sorrow that I would never see it.

Because in the end you can't always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go.

This next one is a little bit more than just one little quote. It's a conversation between the male protaganist and a smaller child, both who are fleeing from the society:

"Do you know how to paint?" Eli asks.
"A little."
"How?"
"My mother taught herself, and then she taught me," I say. "My father used to come here and trade with the farmers. Once, he brought a paintbrush back for her. A real one. But he couldn't afford any paint. He always meant to get her some but never did."
"Then she couldn't paint," Eli says, sounding disappointed.
"No, she could. She used water on rock. Her paintings always vanished in the air."
"Then how did you know what they looked like?" Eli asks.
"I saw them before they dried," I say. "They were beautiful."

I love that conversation. Love love love it. But I really don't know why. I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Oh my gosh, it's 11:11 at night! I have to post this right NOW so I can officially have a blog entry at 11:11, on 11/11/11 (yes, I realize my life is sad if I get off on ten "1s" in a row).

Living on Concrete

2011-11-11T22:04:00.000-08:00

Today has been a huge improvement upon yesterday. It was awesome waking up this morning with a three day weekend to look forward to. And honestly, yesterday wasn't terrible, although I know it may have come across that way. I was just being your typical over-emotional female, but I'm over it now. Work was crazy-busy, mainly because I'm losing all of my prep periods due to the Top Turkey competition. We also had a renaissance rally, which always adds chaos to an otherwise normal day. I was part of a "flash mob," in which we surprised the students with a short dance. It was only about a minute long, but it was pretty funny. My students couldn't believe it when their own teacher was suddenly in a crowd of thirty people, doing a synchronized dance (we rehearsed it the week before). It was like being in a scene from a bad musical.

Last night we went over to Becky's house for small group and had our usual fun. Becky made a delicious potato cheese soup that has me feeling inspired to try cooking up some soups myself. I absolutely love soup in winter--I literally crave it every day. That and hot tea. Clint's sister (Moo) bought me some cinnamon tea for my birthday--the really good stuff--and it is so delicious. Soup, hot tea, and bubble baths...those are the things about winter I love the most. Well that, and Christmas.

Today I got to see Jewls! It was very last minute. Jewls had texted me yesterday letting me know that she was going to be in the desert, and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up with her. Unfortunately I didn't have my phone on me and didn't get her message until late this morning, but we still managed to pull together a visit. We met at a mutual friend's house who happens to live less than five minutes away from me. It was so awesome to see her! We all just hung out and chit-chatted, and I discovered that cranberry-apple juice mixed with sangria is insanely delicious. I also got to cuddle with Seth again. Damn I love that kid. My only complaint about our visit is I had to leave much earlier than I actually wanted. But as I drove home, I told myself that two hours was a whole lot better than nothing at all; especially since I woke up this morning having no clue I'd get even that much.

When I got home, Clint had stripped all the carpet out of our living room and hallway. We've been installing new flooring (this was my birthday present), and as of now, Elijah's room and the office are done. Now we're finally on the main part of the house, which means about two weeks of living on concrete. Oh, we also repainted our office last week. Clint wanted "Asian", so I came up with the color scheme, but the colors came out much bolder than I had envisioned in my head. As I was painting the walls, I was thinking, "Crap, this is going to end up looking like ketchup and mustard walls." And even though that might have been partially true, it all came together in the end, and now I really love this little room. In person, it is so warm and cheery. Here are some pics:

Admittedly the desk is still pretty cluttered...

The new floors (they look better in person--camera dulled them out)

It's sort of fun living on concrete right now. It feels like we're staying in a house that's still under construction. When I was a little girl, my grandparents built their house from scratch, and Shannon and I used to live with them on the weekends. We'd all sleep in their motor home, which they had parked on their lot. At one point, the house was finally dry-walled, and we actually were able to stay inside the house. I remember my grandpa used to barbecue our dinner right in the living room, over the concrete. And we would watch TV...on the concrete. Shan and I also used to tear through the entire house on our Big Wheels (remember those?). Living on concrete right now reminds me of those happy days. The only downfall is I'm stuck wearing slippers everywhere I walk, because the ground is so cold.

May All Your Realistic Dreams Come True

2011-11-09T20:44:00.000-08:00

A lot of people who know me view me as one of those cheery, optimistic-type persons. I think it's because I tend to approach life's little challenges with a sense of humor. You'll never see me cussing because a cat got stuck in my engine compartment, or because my son stuck a paper clip in the electric socket, or because the sheep got in the house and peed all over the living room, or because I burnt half of my eyebrow off, or because I took my sleeping children to work, or...(maybe I should stop now. This list could go on for awhile). But the truth is, on the inside (whatever that means), I'm actually a relatively cynical, and even pessimistic, person.  Even though I generally see the humor in things, when it comes to my own goals and ambitions, my inner-voice is always telling me "You can't do this"; "You'll never make it"; and worst of all, "You're foolish for even trying." I don't know where this comes from. Maybe it's because, even as a little girl, I could perceive that little patronizing smile on my mom's face when I told her I wanted to be a published writer.  Or maybe it's just something that's built into some people. I don't know.

But is being a cynic (or "realist", as I prefer) really such a terrible thing? Studies show that Japanese students far-exceed American students in every possible category, except for self-confidence. Students in Japan have much less confidence in themselves and their abilities, yet here they are, out-performing students in America in every subject to a degree that is nearly staggering. And then you have American students, who have accomplished nothing to instill confidence within themselves, yet are still oozing with the stuff. And they'll still be stuffed full of unsolicited pride and hopes to star on American Idol, even when they're flipping burgers. Over-blown feelings of self-worth without the accomplishments to back it up leads to nothing but a self-entitled individual with no real future. I think the students from Japan show us that, perhaps, keeping one's feet firmly planted in reality (which includes experiencing the occasional bouts of pessimism and insecurity) is what drives a person to eventually accomplish something real.

Plus, honestly, I don't mind feeling cynical about things, because then I never have to feel let-down about those things.  It's simple math: You can't have that feeling of having your hopes crushed if you never hoped to begin with. Viewing life through realistic lenses doesn't negatively impact my overall happiness level; if anything, it actually increases my overall happiness. Because when something wonderful does happen, it is completely unexpected, and thus, much more thrilling.

But sadly, I find myself being a cynic now with Trinity and Elijah. I just don't like to see them let down, so I constantly find myself telling them "Don't get too excited about blah blah blah, because you never know what can happen." I'm not trying to paint pictures of an ugly reality for them; it's just that I hate the idea of them feeling disappointment. I hate the idea of them getting their hopes lifted, and then having their little bubbles burst. I think it was Alana who told me that I should try to get past this; that part of the fun of childhood is anticipating wonderful things, and the occasional let downs are simply part of growing up. I do see the validity in this argument, but it's really hard for me to put it in practice.

But what has really brought this issue to surface for me (and prompted this post) was the recent discovery  that my cynicism is actually permeating into my classroom. Below is a picture of a birthday card I received from one of my students about a month-and-a-half ago. This card not only had me chuckling because the final message is so "me", but it was also a little bit of a wake-up call.  The edges are cut off, so some of the words are lost, but check out the words on the bottom.

So there it is. Twenty years from now, I'm going to be known as the teacher who inspired my students to pursue their dreams...but only the realistic ones. The teacher that pushed her kids to reach for the stars...but only the close, more reachable ones. The teacher who encouraged her students to spread their wings and take flight...but stay on the ground, cuz let's face it, you can't really fly.

Family Theme Night 2011

2011-11-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is the last post I will write regarding Halloween. I swear. I hope.

Much to my surprise, Carnival Night was a lot of fun. We had a ring toss, goldfish toss (with real goldfish; they all ended up in our pond by the end of the night), balloon darts, pie-eating contest, lion-taming show, and a few other games that I can't currently remember. For food we ate giant turkey legs, hot dogs, nachos, funnel cake, popcorn, and cotton candy. I use the word "we" loosely, because I pretty much didn't eat that night (wasn't really in a junk food mood).

My only complaint about the evening was that everyone decided to clean up the party's mess that very same night, which was a real downer. Whenever I host an event, I wait until the guests leave to do the big clean-up. I'll do some basic cleaning while guests are still over (such as putting perishables in the fridge and moving dirty dishes into the sink), but killing the whole party's ambiance with an hour of clean-up makes no sense to me. It's going to be the last thing your guests remember. My other complaint is the fact that Clint's sister never puts on any music. Seriously, it's a party--put on some music! Other than those two details, the night was great. Moo did an amazing job decorating the house, the food was great, and the games were really entertaining.

Teri took over a hundred pictures (that's not an exaggeration), and I just narrowed them down to 37 I want to post.

Damn. I can't post 37 pictures. Blogger needs a slide show feature. Hold on, I'm going to check and see if there are any slideshow gadgets that actually work....

Okay, I'm back. Blogger does have a slideshow gadget, but it requires a Photobucket or Flickr account, and I remember trying it out about six months ago and, even with the account, I couldn't make it work. I think I'll try it out again, but not tonight. I have some important movie-watching and nacho-eating to do.

So, until I can get the pics to come out, I'll put up a few pictures of everyone in their costumes.

Mike (Elvis), Moo (gypsy), Lucas (magician) and Nettie (tightrope walker)

Carey and Teri (dressed as "tourists"--complete with hula-hoop stomachs)

Me (clown) and Clint (tattooed freak)

Forgot to mention the GIANT carnival prizes!

Trinity the leopard (she couldn't find a lion costume)

Elijah the lion tamer (sorry about the lack of a close-up)

Trin and Elijah

Pie-eating contest

Trinity with one of her prizes

Nettie and Lucas cuddling with bears that could swallow them in one gulp if they were actually alive.

That all counted as a "few," right?

Who's the Biggest Loser Here?

2011-11-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

Did you know that if a man reduces his daily calorie intake by 15%, his brain goes into starvation mode, resulting in a severe drop in the production of testosterone? And that this, in turn, can deplete the man's sex drive?

I only bring this up because Clint has been on Nutrisystem for nearly two weeks now.

I am DYING here. I don't need ...that, per say, but I'm craving physical affection so much right now that I'm about to start hugging strangers off the street.

Heeeeeeelllllllp!

Still Busy "Not" Celebrating Halloween

2011-10-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

After all of the Halloween festivities last weekend, my brain has convinced itself that Halloween is over. But NOPE--it goes on...and on...and on....(aren't those song lyrics?).

Today was Halloween dress-up day at work, so I went through my growing collection of costumes to try to find something dress-code appropriate (yes! It's from that one song that says "I throw my hands up in the air sometimes, saying ayyy-ohhh, gotta let go...sorry, I'll get back on topic now).

Luckily I found a Roman empress costume that I had bought on clearance last year. It was SO comfortable. It felt like wearing a sheet.

Tomorrow we are dropping Elijah off at a birthday party, and then taking Trinity to the annual trunk-or-treat classic car show. My dad has a gorgeous '55 Ford Fairlane which he pimps out for this event every year, and it's fun hanging out with my parents while the kids run around getting candy. After trunk-or-treating, we have our Family Theme Night with Clint's family. I think I mentioned this already, but this year's theme is "carnival." I'm really not crazy about this theme. Circus/carnival related characters make me feel uncomfortable.

On Halloween itself, I have to work, but I'm staying after school to carve pumpkins with Avid (one of the clubs on campus). That night, I'm thinking we should just stay home. For a family who supposedly doesn't celebrate Halloween, we sure have a lot of...well...Halloween type things going on.

Unrelated, but Clint finally finished his tattoo today! It is really something. His arm is still raw, but tomorrow I should be able to get a good picture of it to post.

Community Clean-Up Day

2011-10-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

I have company coming over in eleven minutes, so I better make this fast! Here are a few pictures from Community Clean Up Day. The city gave all of my students t-shirts and garden gloves to keep, so that was kind of cool.

Group photo before setting off to work

Me scoping the area

There are a lot of tires in the desert!

Two of my girls taking on a big job

Now some poor hobo is out a fridge

By the end of the day, we had this blue bin completely full!

April lost her gloves

Dragging a couch (and singing, too)

Posing for the camera

The one note-worthy thing that happened is we found a snake out in the desert. I have no idea what kind it was, although I can say that it was sand-colored, and it was a baby. I picked it up (I had on thick garden gloves), and it never tried to strike. It was pretty calm. One of the teachers ended up taking him home as a pet.

Overall, it was such a fun day. The weather was perfect, and the kids were in good spirits and worked really hard. But that's pretty typical; even the most grueling jobs are made fun by this group of kids. I've become so close to my Builders Club members (especially the ones who are in the club for the second year now) that every time we get together, it feels like a holiday. We get so silly, but when it's important, we all work together as a team to get the job done. It always inspire me to see these kids forfeit their Saturdays to do these kinds of jobs. They're such an amazing group.

Next year I'm contemplating letting Builders Club go (that's a story for another time). But every time I start feeling confident in my decision to not run the club next year, I have a day like this. And then I'm suddenly sure that I'll never let this club go. I can't seem to stop ping-ponging back and forth.

Partied Out

2011-10-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were such insanely busy days that I'll probably have to write three different posts to cover them all.  But honestly I'll never get around to doing that, so let's just say that Thursday is forever lost. Although I do have to at least mention real quick that Becky and Alana came over on Thursday night to work out with me, and that was a ton of fun. We played "Just Dance" for an hour, and then negated our workout with cookies and wine. Okay, so there, that was Thursday (not even close, really, but you don't want to read the ten page version, and parts of it include TMI anyway).

Friday was the Halloween party at the dojo. It was a blast and I am definitely going again next year.  I was planning to take things slow that evening, but the very second we walked in, Sensei Brandon told us spin a colorful wheel to determine what drink we were going to start our evening out with.  He wouldn't take no for an answer, which was particularly funny since Clint doesn't drink, and more funny when we both hit the "double-shot" mark on the wheel.  After that, I never drank anything else, but I did have a few jello shots. Okay, a few might have been like 12 or so. I'm not sure. I do remember Brandon asking me how many drinks I had, and I said "eight jello shots, maybe...I think?" and he yelled, "Clint, get your wife on the dance floor NOW!  She's too much of a light-weight to have that much alcohol in her system in only one hour!" and they dragged me out on the floor (even though I felt 100% fine) and made me dance so that I would burn off the alcohol (wow was that a run-on). But every time I got off the floor for a quick break, I'd sneak another jello shot, so I'm not sure how effective their plan was.

Dancing that night was amazing. The whole dance floor was shrouded in fog, and once you were in the midst of it, you sort of disappeared from the outside world. It felt like being in Stephen King's "The Mist," minus the ferocious teeth-wielding monsters. They also had this green laser light thing that I was absolutely enraptured by. I can't explain it. It was positioned to reflect from a giant mirror, and it threw out all of these beautiful green streaks and sparkles that made you feel like you were traveling through space.  Clint claims that I was brainwashed by that laser light (apparently I couldn't stay away from it, and I may have done an entire solo dance in front of it at one point in the evening, but it's not my fault that the lights made me feel like a superstar). Oh, and Clint actually danced! Not a whole bunch, but he did get out there a few times.

We have no pictures from the inside of the dojo, because the fog and black lights ruined any photograph we attempted to take. Here are two cell phone pics that we took outside (they're terrible quality).  Because our family fun night theme is "carnival" this year, I was really limited on costume choices. When I told Clint's mom I was dressing up as a clown, she said, "But you hate clowns."  I told her, "I know, so I'm just going to avoid mirrors."

Me and Sensei Brandon

Me and Clint (the personal trainer, haha!)

A former student's mom was the photographer at the party, and she took some great pictures the entire night. If I can get my hands on some of those, I should have better pics to post later on.

I ended up going to bed that night around 2:00 a.m., which was much earlier than I had expected. I woke up at 6:40 the next morning, and the good news is that I didn't feel hung over at all. The bad news is I think I might have still been a little drunk. I got out of bed and just about fell over. It passed quickly though, and I made it to our Community Clean Up Day right on schedule. I spent the rest of the morning with my Builders Club students, picking up trash in the desert. It was such a gorgeous day. But that's a completely different topic, so I'll save it for my next entry.

After Community Clean Up Day, we had to get the kids ready for their Halloween party. The dojo does two parties in a row: the Friday night party for the adults, and the Saturday night party for the kids. The kids' party had about 85 kids show up. Insane. Here are few pictures from last night:

The kids lining up for the pinata

Clint holding the pinata*

(I hate it that I can't get the little ~ over the "n" on "pinata")

Elijah punching the pinata with a giant hulk glove (except for you can't see him because the thing kept swinging in front of him every time I took a shot)

Elijah participating in the mummy-wrapping contest

Trin in the lead

Trinity's team when they found out they had won the mummy contest

Elijah bobbing for apples

The party was actually a slumber party for kids eight years of age or older, so Trinity stayed the night and Clint chaperoned. The irony of Clint chaperoning was almost too much for me to take. Let's see...he doesn't like kids and he hates Halloween, but let's throw him in the dojo overnight with 45 costumed kids and see what happens! It still makes me laugh so hard. But since Clint is now a sensei there, it's expected that he takes on these kinds of responsibilities. I have to admit that I was jealous as all get out that he got to chaperone. Unfortunately Elijah is only seven years old, so one of us had to stay home with him. At least Elijah and I were able to have fun at the regular party, but pulling an all-nighter with a bunch of crazy kids is definitely more MY kind of thing, and I felt left out. Next year Elijah will be old enough to stay the night, so I am definitely planning to chaperone. Once Elijah and I left the party, Clint said they had pillow fights, played some outdoor ninja game, and played hide-and-seek in the dark. The sensei's made all of the kids go to bed by 3:00 a.m., and the account of how they separated boys from girls was pretty amusing. Apparently they had all of the girls sleep on one side of the mat, all the boys on the other, with a row of ten black belts sleeping between the two. You'd have to be feeling pretty ambitious to breach that border.

I will say that after two days of partying and a day of picking up trash, I am officially ready to veg on my couch and stare vacantly at the TV for a few hours.

Rambling on about Whatever

2011-10-19T21:52:00.000-07:00

I already posted today, but I'm feeling really chatty and have no outlet for it right now. I'm just going to ramble on about whatever.

This week was Red Ribbon Week, which translates to our school doing a series of themed dress-up days to celebrate. It's fun, but I always feel like my wardrobe is being hijacked for a week. By the time it's over, I'm feeling pretty eager to wear my normal work clothes again. Monday was "Twins/Teams Day," where the students and staff are supposed to dress like each other, or wear their favorite sports team shirt. I just wore my normal clothes and told my students that I didn't need to dress like a twin since I really am a twin. Boring, I know. But it was Monday. No one wants to go all out on a Monday. Tuesday was "Hawaiiin Day," so I wore a hula skirt and a cheap blue lay. That last sentence didn't sound right. It was probably the use of the words "cheap" and "lay" in the same sentence. Wednesday (today) was Crazy Hair Day. I wore bright green extensions in my hair. They were pretty cool. Tomorrow is "Smurf Day." I guess we're supposed to wear a bunch of blue. Friday is "Red Hot Day." where we wear a bunch of (you guessed it) red.

Last night I met Becky for dinner at La Casita. She had texted me, apologizing for the short notice but asking me if I wanted to meet after work for a quick bite to eat. I have to admit, I felt a tiny bit nervous; only because the last time I met up with a friend for a spontaneous meal, it was so Alana could tell me she was moving. But thankfully Becky didn't have any earth-shattering news; she just wanted to have dinner with a girlfriend. It was really nice. Becky's life is so overwhelming, so it always leaves me feeling touched when she takes the initiative to meet up with me. I think reaching out might be hard for her, especially since her past friends have had a tendency to do a lot of "taking" without giving in return.

Complete change of topic, but I have had a hell of a week dealing with animal control. I mentioned that Cricket had puppies. Well, our other dog, Calzaghe (pronounced Kal-zoggie--I know, it's a mouthful, but he came to us with that name) is the one who sired those pups. Last week when we took his new puppies and Cricket to the vet, he escaped the yard. This has never happened before. He is a really good dog and never runs off. But he had never been alone in the backyard before, and apparently he freaked out. So animal control picked him up about a half a block away from our house while we were at the vet. The problem? They refuse to let us bail him out without neutering him first. This wouldn't be an issue except for the fact that he's a pure-bred, AKC registered Pembroke Welsh Corgi whose puppies are worth about $600 each.

We showed animal control his AKC paperwork, but it didn't matter. Not only are they making us pay $175 to bail him out of the pound, but they are also making us pay for his neutering. Everything totaled comes to $285. Almost $300! We're essentially buying our dog back, but minus his assets. I tried for a week to save my dog's balls (never thought I'd say that particular sentence) and even took the issue all the way to the City Manager, but it's a city ordinance and just can't be bent. So at 8:30 this morning, Calzaghe was neutered. I am so very very frustrated. I do totally understand that rules need to be in place to avoid over-population of animals, but this whole thing just seems so harsh considering it was a first time offense. And I think it should be illegal to neuter a papered pure-bred against the will of the owners (not to mention make them pay for the unwanted lopping), That's like damaging personal property to the point of rendering it worthless. Even if the property still has sentimental value (as is the case with a pet), it no longer has monetary value. What gives the city the right to take that away?

Saying Goodbye

2011-10-19T17:54:00.000-07:00

I have a ton of stuff I want to write about, but this particular entry I'm going to dedicate to Matt. Matt has officially moved to Northern California, and in two short months, Alana will follow. They came over Friday night so Matt could say goodbye. The four of us ended up sitting outside until 2:00 a.m., next to the pond and the chimnea, gazing at the sky and talking about whether the stars we were looking at were actually still there or not, and philosophizing about other big, important things (I think). And Matt and I did push-ups on the lawn. Not quite sure how that came about. This might be a good time to mention that wine was involved. At any rate, it was hard to say goodbye. Both Clint and Alana often joke about how Matt is my male counterpart (or I'm his female counterpart, whichever). While Clint and Alana are more level-headed and responsible, Matt and I are more spontaneous and childish. Clint and Alana exercise good judgment and can always be counted on; Matt and I don't always think things out completely before proceeding. Now this isn't always true, but it is occasionally true. The thing with Matt is he makes me feel like a little kid again. He embraces life, and when you're with him, it's contagious. I still remember when we were camping, at one point we started to get bored, and out of nowhere, Matt blurts out, "Hey, let's play hide-and-seek!" So we did, for about an hour; adults and kids alike, and it was the most kick-ass game of hide-and-seek ever. I remember hiding in the creek, and the spine-tingling chill I felt when the "seeker" started to get close, and the adrenaline rush of trying to make it to home base (a rock the size of a car), and the sensation of rocks and twigs tearing at my bare feet (seriously, why the hell don't I wear shoes once in awhile?). The point is, I need this in my life. My job is so heavy that there are times when it feels crushing, and I need the catharsis of playing hide-and-seek, or jumping in an icy river in November, or climbing a tree in the middle of the night, or doing push-ups in the dark on the wet lawn, or whatever. Being crazy or stupid once in awhile is therapy for me. It prevents me from taking life too seriously, and I come back to my responsibilities as a wife, teacher, and mother feeling so much more rejuvenated.

Of course we will visit Matt and Alana, and they will visit us. They've become family to us, and distance is not going to change that. But with Matt now living so far away, I no longer have my partner in crime. Plus there will be no more trips to the hot springs, no more silly games of Taboo, no more chips and salsa, no more birthday parties, no more late night conversations....

When Matt and Alana left on Friday night, Matt gave me a hug in the driveway and said "I'm going to miss the hell out of you Jodi." Best words he could have left me with. Ditto that, Matt. I'm going to miss the hell out of you, too.

Oh, and just for posterity....

You know you're going to miss us. ;-)

P.S. I shudder to think about the sob-fest that awaits my poor blog in December when Alana leaves too.

Halloween, Bad Hangovers, & Community Service

2011-10-13T22:27:00.000-07:00

Don't those items go nicely together? Halloween is approaching, and just for fun, I typed the word "Halloween" into the search bar on my blog to see what I have said about the topic in the past. It was really no surprise to discover that every time I referred to the holiday, it was usually followed by the word "blech" or some other disgruntled interjection. I noticed that every year I try to explain to some degree why I don't care for this particular holiday. This time, in lieu of writing the same reasons over again, I was simply going to be lazy and link up to a post from the past. But surprisingly, the best explanation I could find for my dislike toward Halloween was packaged as a comment to one of my followers:

Halloween can be a source of contention for me. I used to love Halloween as a child, but Clint absolutely hates it, so I sometimes feel a little resentful that my kids aren't carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating like other kids. We still do fun things around Halloween, but I feel a bit deprived of those traditions that I grew up with....Luckily we both love Christmas and go WAY out for that.

That explanation isn't entirely fair though, because even without Clint's disapproval of the holiday, Halloween would still fill me with a small sense of wariness. I was never able to watch horror movies as a child (and still can't today), because gruesome images disturb me. I know all of it is fake and supposed to be fun, but replication of human torment in any form just isn't fun for me, especially when you consider that there are real-life crazies out there getting off on that stuff. Likewise, some of the more extreme Halloween decorations bother me. I don't mind spiders and webs and cackling witches and that sort of thing, but I don't like the really gory stuff, such as dismembered body parts, bloody faces, and so on. It seems like every year, the decorations are getting more graphic. What happened to the good ole' days of hanging up sheets on your trees?

But the thing is, even with my sensitivity to Halloween, my feelings of wariness as a child/teen were always off-set by the fun parts of the holiday. The pumpkin carving, costume wearing, trick-or-treating, parties, etc. But in my married life, I feel like I have lost out on a lot of the thrilling parts, yet have still been stuck simmering in a state of gloom as the holiday comes and goes. We still have these fun themed party with his family each year, but all of the traditional Halloween stuff has been completely taken out of the equation.

But I did just use the phrase "in the past," and that's because in the last two years, Clint has started to be a tiny bit more open toward Halloween. It started last year, when he actually agreed to go to our friends' Halloween party. And now this year, he actually bought tickets to the dojos annual party, which I could not be more thrilled about. We've contemplated going to this party a few times in the past, but this time we actually set it in stone. Here's the ticket (had to cover address on top):

They're dead-serious about the designated driver thing. Apparently Sensei Brandon takes your keys away upon arrival, and a lot of people end up spending the night. Clint's saying that he's going to park our RV in the parking lot so we can crash at any time, but I don't know how serious he is about that. Although we do already have people claiming spots in our RV. Clint keeps telling them, "Okay, but I should warn you, I like to cuddle."

So the one problem with all of this? Last week, I was all proud of myself because I organized a community clean-up project for my Builders Club. Two other clubs decided to join us, so I now have 75 kids signed up to pick up litter, starting at 8:00 a.m. I didn't realize until AFTER I finalized all of the plans that the date I chose (the 22nd) happened to be the morning AFTER the Halloween party. So I'm going to be partying all night, crashing some time in the morning, and then waking up at 7:00 a.m. to go out into the desert with 75 kids to pick up trash. Worst hangover EVER.

But I don't care. There's no way I'm cancelling out on going to the dojo's party, nor am I going to baby myself that night by attempting to cut out early. Nuh uh. I've waited too long for this. I'm ready to get my Halloween on.

Forgiveness, Surprise Puppies, and Bring your Kids to Work Day

2011-10-11T21:37:00.000-07:00

I need to work on tidying up my titles. :)

Yesterday was an eventful day for me, and something that will stand out in my memory for a long time. I needed to ask a friend, face-to-face, for forgiveness for something I did nearly a year ago. The whole drive there, I kept picturing our confrontation and how nerve-wracking it would be. But once we were together and finally brave enough to dive into deep discussion, I realized that she has a capacity for forgiveness that far-exceeded my wildest expectations. Our lunch together turned out to be an indescribably wonderful experience. The part that stands out the most is when she reached across the table, took my hands, and said "Jodi, I forgive you.  We're friends." As if it were the most simple decision in the world to make.

I was also able to meet her four-month-old baby boy for the first time, and he is so utterly adorable that he was making me ache for more babies of my own. Every time I held him, he just gazed right into my face with these big, beautiful eyes, and this little smile playing across his face. He has so much personality, and in the five hours or so that we chatted, he never once got fussy.  That kid is lethal to hold if you're trying to NOT have anymore kids.

The drive home last night was a happy blur. But I didn't come close to getting enough sleep last night, so this morning I kept making silly mistakes. The biggest one was I accidentally took the kids to work with me. Their school starts after mine, so every morning I load their sleepy little bodies into the car and drop them off at Teri's house. But this morning, my mind must've been on auto-pilot. I pulled up into my work's parking lot, ready to start my day, when suddenly I hear Trin's sleepy little voice in the back of the car saying, "Um, Mom, what are we doing?" I gasped and said "Oh crap! You two are still here?"  They both started cracking up, and I had to turn around and drive them to Teri's house, which landed me with a lousy parking spot once I finally got back to work. But it was a lot better than having an eleven- and seven-year-old stuck in my classroom all day wearing jammies and slippers.

In other news, my dog Cricket had six puppies. This is only exciting for me because I didn't know she was pregnant until Friday (long story). Teri was the one who finally noticed the fact that the dog was stuffed to the brim with puppies, and I actually had to go back to a previous post to see when Cricket was due. Based on my calculations, she was due this Monday, which gave me three whole days to prepare. Lo and behold, she actually delivered them right on her due date, while I was busy at the "edge of the ocean" trying to start over again. I have never in my adult life dealt with newborn puppies before, so I'm a little nervous about them. They're pure-bred Pembroke Welsh Corgis (damn that sounds pretentious), so Clint's already doing a great job taking care of them since they're his little money-makers.

Edge of the Ocean

2011-10-09T21:03:00.000-07:00

Shannon and the kids came over today. We had a great visit! I'd write more about it, but I have absolutely no creativity today. I took one look at my painting this morning and just instinctively knew that if I attempted to touch it with a paint brush, I'd have to scrap the whole thing. I tried working on my manuscript for over an hour, but the only thing I added to it was one line on chapter four that says "Blah blah blah" (literally, that's what it says). And now I can't even form the words for a decent blog entry. Yet here I am, attempting one anyway.

"At the edge of the ocean, we can start over again...". I love those lyrics. I should say more about this song, but...well...yeah. Zero creativity.

The Sun will Set for You

2011-10-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

What a deliciously relaxing Saturday! Okay, I might have forced a little enthusiasm just now because I promised that I'd be more upbeat, but seriously, it wasn't half-bad. I stayed at home and did nothing. Well, let me qualify that a little. "Nothing" means I did laundry, cleaned my house (as best as I could considering I was tripping over relocated furniture), listened to music, worked on a painting, and played with the bunny. But the point is, for the first time in months, I had an entire day free with absolutely no obligations. Clint was busy getting an enormous tattoo (more on that later), and with no papers to grade this weekend, I had that awesome feeling of waking up to a big fat open day stretching in front of me.

I'm feeling a little better about Matt and Alana moving, although the whole idea still disheartens me. Matt is moving out there next week, and that sort of sucks, because it's all happening so fast. But Alana is staying until December so she can finish off her semester of school and deal with their house. She and I have decided that we're going to spend as much time together as possible, and just really try to make these final months count. So in this sense, I'm thankful.

Tomorrow Shannon is coming over, which is good because I'm craving my sis badly right now. The last time I saw her was at the L.A. County Fair on the 24th, but for some reason, it feels like it's been so much longer. Then, on Monday, I'm driving over two hours to meet a friend for lunch. I'm really excited to see her, but also nervous. It's been a long time since we've seen each other, and a lot of things have trespassed between us since our last visit.

I love this song.

P.S. Alana, I promise I'm not still wallowing--(much)--the song choice is pure coincidence. :)

This Week's Gloom Log

2011-10-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

I tend to avoid my blog when I'm feeling depressed. Well, "depressed" is probably too strong of a word for what I've been feeling, but it's just been a gloomy sort of week. On Monday I found out one of my seventh graders from last year was diagnosed with cancer and is now a permanent resident of Loma Linda's Children's Hospital. She's such a sweet girl, and so young. It just breaks my heart.

On Tuesday I found out that Matt and Alana are moving to Northern California. I can't even begin to say how much this tears me up. I'm happy that both of them get to start this new adventure together, and especially thrilled that Matt found such a good job. But Alana is the closest friend I have, and selfish me is having a difficult time coping with the idea of losing her as a regular part of my life.  Not to mention Matt, who has always felt like a brother to me. I actually wrote an entire blog entry about this, but it's just too pitiful to post, so I'll leave it unpublished.

On Wednesday Clint and I spent most of the day arguing with each other. Although it wasn't really an argument; it was him reacting toward something I did that I shouldn't have (pretty typical for me), and me apologizing and waiting for him to calm down. The one good thing that came out of it is we pretty much resolved everything over text messaging, so by the time we both got home from work, the situation had just about blown over. But it still made for an emotional, distracting day.

Last night we went over to Becky's house for pizza. It was such an awesome visit. We spent three hours doing nothing but talking and sharing. But I came home from Becky's house feeling a little bittersweet, just because I knew that this was one of our last times together as a group.  Last night I tried to go to bed right after 10:00, but insomnia reared its ugly head and I ended up staying awake past 4:00 a.m. I had to get up at 6:00 for work, so I was dragging by this afternoon. Today was a minimum day because we had to do report cards, so the last bell rang at 1:02 p.m., and it took me two hours to input all of my grades, including citizenship and comments. I posted my grades at 3:00 and was just getting ready to leave when the counseling department called, asking for an ETA on my grades. I told them that I had posted them ten minutes ago. They informed me that they weren't showing, and after a few minutes, we realized the mistake. I had posted them under "semester 1" when I was supposed to post them under "quarter 1."  A simple, sleep-deprived mistake.  It seemed like a simple fix to me, but when I switched my gradebook back to "quarter 1", all of my comments and citizenship grades disappeared. Two hours of work down the drain. I nearly cried when I realized I was going to have to re-do them all. I ended up taking them home, and thankfully, with Clint's help, it only took me about 45 minutes to re-do them.

After the whole report card fiasco, Clint's mom, sister, and brother-in-law came over for dinner.  I didn't know anyone was coming over until last night, and it was slightly amusing because we're in the process of putting new flooring in our house, so our house is presently quite torn apart. I'm not sure why we couldn't eat dinner in a more put-together location, but if no one else minds little Lucas playing in rooms with hammers and such, who am I to complain.

Okay, so I'll try to be more upbeat in my next post.

Woman of Faith Conference--Better Late than Never, Right?

2011-10-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

Eons ago (aka: last month) I had an awesome weekend in Anaheim which I promised I would write more about, but I keep getting side-tracked by parades or hailstorms or stray kittens or canned food drives or pink hair (not necessarily in that order). So I'm going to set everything else on my mind aside for a few minutes and talk about it, because it really is something I want to remember later.

That week, Alana and I had agreed that we wanted to leave for Anaheim around 7:00 a.m., so that morning I set my alarm for 5:50 a.m. An hour and ten minutes would give me enough time to get ready, finish packing, and eat breakfast. I've been using the same alarm for over five years, and it has never failed me. Yet, when my alarm went off that morning, it was 6:50, NOT 5:50. I had ten minutes before Alana was going to be pulling up in my driveway. Now one might argue, "You just thought you set your alarm for 5:50, but you actually set it for 6:50." That's what I thought, too. But nuh uh. I checked, and it was indeed set for 5:50. So the next argument might be, "You just pushed snooze for an hour." The problem with that theory is, not only am I not a snooze person (I haven't used the snooze button since high school), but my alarm's snooze is exactly nine minutes long. The number 9 is not a factor of 60, thus there is no amount of pushing snooze that would result in my alarm going off exactly one hour past it's designated time. The final argument is, "Your alarm was actually going off for the full hour, but you didn't hear it until 6:50." Really, though? Loud, blaring music at full-blast, and it took me exactly 60 minutes for it to jar me awake? That just doesn't seem plausible (plus, again, I'm a light sleeper. I have no history in the past fifteen years of sleeping through an alarm).

So it's official. Supernatural forces made my alarm go off an hour late.

Luckily, supernatural forces also made Alana show up at my house a half hour late, so instead of only having ten minutes to get ready, I had a half hour. It wasn't exactly the relaxing, organized morning I was going for, but it wasn't as disastrous as it could have been.

Once we left my house, we stopped at Circle K to get some coffee. We decided not to fuel up at the time, because it seemed like we had plenty of gas to get to our destination. I only bring this up because later, while we were stuck in traffic nearing Anaheim, the low fuel light came on in my car. It was mildly ironic (and would only happen to chicks--you men would've had the common sense to fill up while you were at the friggen' gas station). My car alarm also went off loud at that same gas station, and Alana's coffee cup was leaking in my car. Again, I only bring this up, because we had a lot of "little things" like this happen throughout the weekend (i.e. paying $15 for parking when a $5 lot was one block over, choosing a motel next to the wrong convention center, etc.).

The conference, which I mentioned in an earlier post, was awesome. There were several presenters that stood out, but my overall favorite was author Patsy Clairmont. She was down-to-earth, quirky, hilarious, and inspirational. She never tried to elevate herself above others or make herself sound special, despite all of the obstacles she managed to conquer in her past. Here are pics of the inside of the convention center. What the pictures can't capture is the ambiance--the beautiful dim lighting and music made for a really powerful atmosphere.

At one point of the conference, when the lights had dimmed to the point where it was almost completely dark, my contact popped out of my eye. For no reason whatsoever. I was just sitting there, and out it popped. It fell all the way to the floor, and with my vision now compromised and poor lighting, I had zero chance of finding it. So I handed my cell to Alana (I have a handy flashlight app) and she searched the floor for me. Luckily she found it, but now I had a new dilemma. What was I supposed to do with it? I didn't have a contact case or solution in my purse. And even if water worked on contacts (which it doesn't), I couldn't risk navigating the crowds in the auditorium to carry my $180 lens to the bathroom. So my solution? Spit on the sucker and pop it back in. Isn't that so gross? I mean, the thing had been on the floor, a floor which had been trampled on by God knows how many people. But that's what I did. I told Alana I was probably going to wake up the next morning with pink eye.

After Friday's conference, Alana and I went and explored Downtown Disney. Unfortunately these are the only pictures we took (in the Lego store). I tend to get lost in the experience of things and forget to take pics.

Alana and Robot Guy

That expression makes it look like I should've been reaching lower...?

That night, we ate dinner at the House of Blues, and then enjoyed happy hour (for much longer than an hour). House of Blues was a blast. Once the D.J. started to play decent music, Alana and I danced a ton. The most hilarious part of the night was when this one drunk guy kept trying to do a strip-tease, and his very loyal friends were perpetually shoving his shirt back on and trying to keep him out of trouble. He kept gravitating toward Alana, and at one point, before she could stop him, he jumped right in front of her and started doing a lap dance of sorts. She was laughing hysterically while simultaneously horrified, with this look of "Aghhhh, yuck!" on her face. A better friend would have stepped in, but I was busy trying to get a picture. Then I was planning to help. Yeah, next time I'll do better. Overall the guy was harmless, and he didn't cause either one of us any further trouble for the rest of the night.

After dinner and happy hour, we arrived back at our motel sometime after 2:00 a.m. I still remember the walk back...all of the dark shops, the sprinklers coming on, the cool, still air. It was such a beautiful night. But I was viewing everything through happy liquor goggles, so don't take my word on any of that.

The next morning, we had to get up early for Day 2 of the conference. Okay, I have a lot more I want to include, but I'm noticing that this entry is getting really long, so I'll sum up by saying that there were more awesome presentations, and I was tired (gee, you think?). Oh yeah, in every bathroom I went into that day, the soap dispenser was out of soap.

Pumped Up Kicks

2011-09-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

Me and Trinity made up a dance to go with this song a few weeks ago. As you can imagine, it involves a lot of kicking.

So Trinity came to my after-school tutoring session, and this song came on the radio. Of course I blasted it, and Trinity got up and started doing our dance. Another student, Joshua, got such a kick out of it (no pun intended) that he quickly joined her. Then another student, Alicia, jumped in. Pretty soon, almost my entire tutoring class was up in front of the classroom, bouncing and kicking like pros (and of course I had to join in, cuz it was MY dance, after all).

My door was propped open, so if anyone happened to walk passed room 405 while all of this was going on, I can assure you that the weird kicking/jumping/line dance thing we had going on was directly related to the language arts curriculum. My tutoring methods may seem a little unorthodox, but they never fail. Just don't ask me for details on that one.

On a side-note, strange lyrics for such a catchy song!

Blondes Have More Fun? Pssh...

2011-09-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

No time to write a detailed post, but I did say I would explain the bet that I lost, so here's the short version. We held a canned food drive at my school, and homeroom classes competed against each other to try to collect the most cans. I bet my students that I could bring in more cans than all of them combined. If I won, they had to go up on the stage during the first five minutes of lunch and sing a "Mrs. P is awesome" song in front of the whole cafeteria. If they won, I would come to school with pink hair. I do similar bets every year to pump up the competition, but generally I don't lose. This year my students creamed me! They brought in over seven hundred cans! Our class broke all previous records. I'd love to write more about this, but I'm really crunched for time, so here are some quick pics of my hair today. The flash from my cell-phone camera dulled out the pink a LOT (especially on that second pic)--I swear it was much more shockingly bright in person.

I sprayed the entire bottle in my hair and ran out before I could cover it all. I did manage to get more coverage later though, after these pics were taken.

Okay, so it's probably pretty obvious that I upped the brightness/contrast of that last pic. That was just for the fun of it. ;-) If I ever find this exact shade of pink in a bottle of permanent hair dye, I might be tempted to go for it. Nevermind department meetings and parent-teacher conferences.

Today was fun and insane! But in the interest of not being done celebrating, I'm signing out now!

Airplanes in the Night Sky

2011-09-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

So I lost a bet and now I have to go to work this Friday with bright pink hair. Coincidentally, Friday also happens to be my birthday, which means I get to enter my 33rd year of existence with lovely bright pink tresses. I'll explain all of that in my next blog entry though, because it's sort of a long story.

This song below played tonight during a heart-warming scene from the season premiere of Biggest Loser. I don't usually watch the show, but it happened to be on TV when I walked into the living room. I'll admit, even though the scene was out of context for me since I had just tuned in, the combination of that sweet scene and this particular song made me feel all warm and mushy. The video, on the other hand...well, it doesn't really compare. But that's okay. I've decided that even though the lead singer has sort of weak eyes that bother me, I still like the song.

One more, and then I'm off to bed. So rap is generally not my preferred genre of music, but I do enjoy the occasional rap song when it has an actual melody and lyrics that I can connect with. Although this next song is rap, it is just so sweet. Sweet in the traditional sense; not sweet as in "dude, your new ride is sweet!" I love the chorus the most. "Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting starts?" How adorable is that line? It sort of brings you back to those childhood days when the world was full of possibility.

Teacher's Pet?

2011-09-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

Look who wandered into my classroom! Well technically she didn't come all the way in; she just meowed at my door, which happened to be open at the time. And of course I had to whisk her up immediately before she got suffocated with hugs and squeals from insanely excited seventh graders.

It took every inch of willpower I possess to NOT take her home. I already have three cats, and I'm pretty sure a fourth one would qualify me to be on the show Hoarders.

Parade, Shovels, and Unexpected Babysitting Jobs

2011-09-17T20:23:00.000-07:00

Today has been such a whirlwind, but what an awesome day! This morning my Builders Club students and I marched in our city's local parade. It was SO much fun. Here are about 35 of my kids (the club is up to 52 paid members).

These kids are my pride and joy. They're hard-workers, enthusiastic, and not afraid to roll up their (proverbial) sleeves and get a little dirty. I just love them! We also had a shovel decorating contest. I'll post a few of my favorite shovels at the end of this post.

The parade ends each year at K-Mart, and at that point I had to wait about an hour and a half for all of the kids to get picked up. It wasn't as bad as it sounds though, mainly because I had a partner in crime (a former RMS student who now attends college--I just adore her), and we kept each other and the group entertained. Plus the kids find ways to keep themselves occupied. Although we did accidentally bring down an entire sales rack of clothing. That was awkward. I like how the kids' shirts say "Builders Club...we don't monkey around," yet here they are...

(Photo published with parent's permission)

Once the last student was picked up, I met up with Clint and the kids at our city's local festival, and I had an enormous plate of carne asada nachos that I still can't stop thinking about because they were so friggen' good. The kids and Clint were also in the parade with the martial arts group, and Clint had to stay at the festival to work one of the booths. Somehow I ended up babysitting a cute little two- (or maybe three?) year-old for a couple of hours. Still not quite sure how that happened. The owner of the dojo was running the booth with his wife and his little itty-bitty son, and me and his wife were talking near the pond when she suddenly realized she had to leave for her friend's baby shower. She told her son, "Here Ezra, go with Jodi!" and took off. It was pretty funny considering that this woman is barely an acquaintance of mine. At any rate, my kids had taken off, and I had nothing better to do, so I took little Ezra to the playground, through all of the bounce houses, down a giant slide, and waded with him through the water. People kept telling me, "Your son is so cute!" and if I had time, I'd explain that he wasn't mine, but it got to the point where it was easier just to say "Thanks!" It was all fun and games until the worker running the giant inflatable slide said, "Awww, how old is your little boy?" and I replied, "I have no idea."

So here is the club t-shirt that I created, with the help of my amazing t-shirt guy:

The students have the same exact images and lettering on their shirts, but their's are printed on light blue fabric, and are the standard crew neck style.

Now I'm finally home and I have to say, it feels GOOD to be indoors with air-conditioning! I think I'll whip myself up another snack and wash it down with a nice big glass of iced-tea. Here are some unorganized shovel pics (I can only seem to get them in one straight line).

I have a ton more, but Blogger is being a nightmare with my photos right now. It won't let me move them anywhere I want, so if I keep posting more, I'll just end up with one very long, skinny line, and a lot of white space. I haven't judged the shovels yet, but at the minimum, I think I"m going to give the monster one a "Creativity Award." I'm leaning toward that farm house one as the grand prize winner...it's pretty detailed, considering that student's canvas was a shovel. It's a hard contest to judge, because they were all so cute!

Rain and Spontaneous Hail

2011-09-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days that had a feeling of...un-normalcy to it. It was pouring rain when I woke up, and that alone would have lent to a more interesting morning (something you understand if you have ever lived in the desert). Just that indescribably fresh scent and rumbling thunder had me on a high. Rain in the desert leads to flooded roads incredibly fast, but luckily I have a ridiculously short drive to work, so it wasn't a big deal. I dropped my kids off at my mother-in-law's house this morning, and I had time to listen to exactly one song on my way to work. I was laughing because the "one" song that played on the radio was "Tears and Rain" by James Blunt. I swear radio stations do that on purpose, because it seems like every time it rains, I'm hearing songs about rain. Although usually they pick more upbeat rain songs, like "It's Raining Men" or "Blame it on the Rain" (ooh, remember that one?). I'm still in a festive, rainy mood, so maybe I'll post a rain song at the end of this post.

Anyway, later this morning, we had a code red drill. Code red drills aren't anything out of the ordinary, but I thought the drill was going to be during third period, and it actually happened during second. I hadn't prepped my second period kids for the drill at all, and we were all outside (rain had cleared) partner-reading when it began. Normally I would never have my class outside during a code red drill. What a pain. But there we were, outside, when I heard the intercom give a loud click. I actually said out-loud, "Oh no. Don't you dare say code red!" Of course, our vice principal's voice came on the loud-speaker, saying "Code red, code red, code red." So I had to get thirty-four kids funneled inside of the classroom and crouched beneath their desks with the lights off and the doors locked before admin came around to perform their lock-down "tests." Thankfully we pulled it off.

But the truly insane part of the day was the hailstorm this afternoon! I've never seen anything like it before. Again, we were partner-reading outside during 7th period, enjoying the beautiful partly-sunny weather, when the sky darkened. The temperature cooled slightly, and lightening streaked across the sky. The air became very still. I got those inclement weather goosebumps and decided to escort my students back into the classroom. They had just settled back into their seats when, with no warning and no gradual build-up whatsoever, it began to pour with hail. It was so strange. The temperature was way too warm for hail (somewhere in the low 80s, I'm guessing), yet there it was; dime-sized chunks of ice crashing down from the sky. And we're not talking just a little bit; it was a torrential downpour. Since the hailstorm was much more captivating than the Eleanor Roosevelt biography we were reading, I gave up on my lesson and propped my door open. We spent the rest of the period watching the storm and writing journal entries about it.

Here's "Tears and Rain," but where the heck is the music video for this song? Does it really not have one? That seems tragic, because it has the potential to be a beautiful (albeit sad) video.

Where were You Ten Years Ago...

2011-09-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of questions that start with those words.
"Where were you when JFK was shot?"
"Where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?"
But there is one big question that still shakes my generation to its core. "Where were you the morning of September 11, 2001?" We are once again faced with the irony that most of us can't conjure up an image of five days ago; the errands we ran, the thoughts we were thinking, the emotions we were feeling, and so on. But when it comes to Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the setting unfurls painstakingly slow in the mind like some horrific scene from a movie, still as thick with color and pungent with details today as it was ten years ago.

Just like your own story, my September 11th narrative is something I could draw out for pages and pages. But I will spare the reader all of that and just say that Clinton and I, along with the rest of the nation, were rattled that day. I still remember a cold chill surging through my body when that second plane hit the towers; as the realization washed over America that this shocking tragedy was no accident. I still remember watching all of the live footage. With tears streaming down our faces, we watched as victims from the upper stories of the towers threw themselves out the windows, clawing at the air all the way down. We cried in horror as the first tower collapsed to the ground, engulfing all of the firefighters and other victims within. And then, with the rest of the nation, we watched in stunned silence as the last tower collapsed, taking with it any remaining hopes for a happy ending.

For Clint and I, the butterfly effect from that day still continues to shape our lives. When the twin towers were struck, Clint was working for United Airlines. As most people know, two of the airplanes hijacked were United Airlines jets. Due to a newly instilled fear of terrorism on airlines, many Americans stopped flying. This caused the airline industry to nearly collapse. In October, 2001, United Airlines announced that they were furloughing every single aircraft mechanic who had been there five years or less. And Clint, of course, was one of them. We lost his income, our medical insurance, the house we were in escrow for, and essentially, our livelihood. But when you consider what others lost that day, and what the nation lost as a whole, we were definitely the lucky ones. Irregardless, with no income, we had to leave our townhouse. On December 19th, 2001, I took my last final for MATC, packed up a U-Haul, and headed back home to California. I hung tinsel in our U-Haul since we wouldn't have a Christmas tree that year. Trinity was twenty months old.

Now it is ten years later. Every anniversary of 9/11, I show my seventh graders a poignant video called "America Remembers." The first year that I showed the video, my students cried. Though they were only eight years old in 2001, they still remembered that day. They remembered the emotional shock wave that seemed to rattle through the entire nation. They remember our country screeching to a halt. They remember their parents being glued to the television screen. They remember the sorrow, the anger, and the fear emanating from the grown-up's eyes.

Then I showed it the next year. Now my students were only seven years old when 9/11 happened. They still cried. They still remembered. But the memories were a little more blurry.

I showed it the next year. Students were now six years old when 9/11 happened. Some of them cried a little. A few had hazy recollections of that day.

I showed it the next year. Very few hazy recollections. One or two teary eyes. And so it continued.

Then I showed it last year. Not one of them had any memories of September 11th, 2001.

Now, tomorrow, I will show the video to a group of students who were only two years old when September 11th occurred. I wonder if there will be any tears at all?

In another two years, my students will have not even been born when the events from September 11th transpired. And from that point on, 9/11 will be nothing more than a historical tidbit found within their social studies textbooks. It feels strange to watch such an important memory whittle away to almost nothing.

But my generation remembers. And for the sake of the heroes that lost their lives that day, please, let's not ever forget.

Ten years later

To Our Health (Clink!)

2011-09-10T22:52:00.000-07:00

I just got home a few hours ago from the annual Woman of Faith conference in Anaheim. Alana and I went together, and it was so much fun! The speakers were witty, heart-warming, and hilarious. We left yesterday morning at 6:30 a.m., and we have been going nonstop since then. I feel like jello right now. Neither one of us got enough sleep on Thursday night, and then last night, in lieu of sleeping (like all the other rational "women of faith" were doing), we partied at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney. We got back to our hotel room around 2:30 a.m., and had to get up early this morning for Day 2 of the conference. I'll write a more detailed post about our weekend later--I'm way too tired and loopy to do it right now.

Completely off-topic, but I have heard several reports now of studies revealing that moderate drinkers live longer than those who drink a whole bunch and those who drink very little. Obviously that former item doesn't surprise me, but the latter does. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, "Drinking in moderation is defined as having no more than one drink per day for women and no more than two drinks per day for men." I get that this definition is not supposed to be applied as an overall average, but still, holy cow. I can wash down my scrambled eggs every single day with a tumbler of tequila and not only get away with the title "moderate drinker," but actually live longer as well? Wow. Now given that I am a person who likes to maintain a healthy body, this is something that might be worth further investigation. But I'm thinking that the one-drink-a-day-thing is a little too much of a commitment for me. I wonder if a once-a-month drink binge will suffice instead? Because I'm willing to squeeze that into my busy life. I mean, for the sake of my health and all.

Honey I Blew up the Bunny

2011-09-06T21:37:00.000-07:00

It's starting to become a running joke amongst our family and friends that we own a petting zoo. Which is weird to me, because I honestly don't feel like we have a bunch of animals. In fact, when you first walk into our house, you're pretty much greeted with a nice, relatively clean home with very little evidence of pets. But if you start a deeper exploration, you'll eventually find: Two dogs, three cats, two rats, one desert tortoise, one tarantula, one lizard, one sheep, and a pond full of fish. This list doesn't include the intermittent bugs that Trinity raises, such as the two June bugs we housed last month, the basket full of praying mantises, and the tank full of slugs. Yeah, I guess we have a few pets. So I guess it shouldn't come to any kind of surprise that we picked up one more this weekend.

It all started a few weeks ago, when Trinity was reading her Kids National Geographic magazine, and she showed me a picture similar to this one:

Initially I thought that this must be some record-breaking freak-of-nature bunny. But as I read the article, I discovered that this is just a normal breed of domesticated rabbit. The rabbit above is called a "Flemish Giant," and they are ALL this big (google it and you'll see what I'm talking about). For me, it was love at first sight. I did some research and learned that they are very easy-going, lovable pets, and easily litter-box trained (never mind the fact that their litter box is the size of a car). After extensive research, I decided I had to have one. The logical side of me was screaming out "No, no, BAD idea! What are you going to do with a giant rabbit? You already have too many pets!" But the child in me told it "Shut up, I'm getting that bunny."

So for the last few weeks, Clint and I have been on the hunt for a Flemish Giant. As you can imagine, they are not easy to find. We were thinking that we might even have to drive out of state to get one. But then Clint's sister called us yesterday with the news that an online listing for two six-week-old does had suddenly showed up in Glendora. We of course drove down there, and the rest is history. Here's our new bunny (she's the one on the left):

She rode on Elijah's lap all the way home. You can see that at six weeks old, she's already almost the size of a full-grown rabbit.

When we got back up to the desert, we realized we had no supplies for a rabbit. The pet stores were already closed, so we swung by K-Mart. Having nowhere to put her, I took her right into the store with me. It's a pretty cool social experiment to walk into K-Mart with a rabbit in your arms. Most people were mildly curious about her (including the workers), but for the most part, didn't act overly surprised or concerned.

We don't have a cage for her yet, but she's already doing such a great job using her litter box, I don't think we'll ever bother with one. Plus imagine the size of cage it would take to house her once she's full grown! I took her to my mother-in-law's house this afternoon, and she rode right on my lap while I was driving. She is such an adorable, sweet and docile little thing. The only downfall is I don't care for her name. I wanted to name her either Sunkist or Tabitha, but the kids and Clint voted on "Pumpkin." I think Pumpkin is adorable, but I have reasons for not wanting it for our rabbit. Unfortunately I was out-voted, so Pumpkin it is. I'll be sure to post another update in eight months when I'm pulling my hair out because a monstrous Pumpkin is chewing up my laptop cords and terrorizing my house.

As far as rationalizing yet another pet, I'll just close with a quote I heard recently on How I Met Your Mother.

"Some mistakes you just have to make."

No Fire...but a Flood of Ants

2011-09-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

This morning during first period, I opened up my desk drawer to grab some staples, but immediately gasped and jumped back because the entire drawer was coated with ants. I'm not scared of ants, it's just that the sight of a gazillion of them flooding my desk took me by surprise. Two of my students, being adorable chivalrous little guys, removed the entire drawer for me and spent the rest of the period cleaning off all of my supplies and getting rid of as many ants as possible. But man were they everywhere. Even on me. I'm feeling pretty grateful for the three day weekend now. Hopefully I'll return to an arthropod-free classroom. Teaching is already challenging enough without having to swat at your arms and legs every five minutes because some little critter has decided to use you as an overpass.

Our fire alarm also went off today, but it only lasted for a few minutes. For reasons I don't quite understand though, it takes the school a long time to turn off the alarm, even when it's been declared a "false alarm" (as I once mentioned in a past post). So you end up having to cram your lecture into little ten second increments, between the obnoxious, jarring, ear-piercing beeps. Between ants and fire alarms, I just about threw in the towel today as far as teaching was concerned. The only standards my kids mastered were how to effectively cover their ears and squish stuff.

Builders Club is now back in full force. I held an informational meeting last Thursday, and our first official meeting yesterday. I had about 46 kids at the meeting, which was huge. A ton of kids want to join the club, and I couldn't be more excited, especially since this year I actually know how to run it. I designed our T-shirts last week and placed my order two days ago. I love my T-shirt guy. I worked with him last year too, and he is awesome and puts up with my constantly changing mind. This year the kids voted on a monkey theme, so I came up with the catch phrase: "Builders Club--We don't monkey around," and pieced together (from Google images) a goofy monkey carrying a toolbox. I'll try to post a pic of the T-shirt once it's done. Now that I think about it, I should post last year's too. I don't think I ever did.

I was just thinking back on the fire alarm, and it was a little ironic, because we did actually have two fires burning here in the desert today. The large plume of smoke could be seen from outside of our classrooms. The smoke from one of the fires was thick enough at one point to close down the I-15 from both directions (on a holiday weekend, nonetheless). It's still raging on. So I guess the "No Fire" part of my title isn't completely accurate.

Nothing Else Matters

2011-08-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

It just occurred to me that today is August 31st! This means I officially failed my 90 Day Bible Challenge. I am disappointed, because I think it would have been really cool to be able to say "I've read the entire Bible in 90 days." But I do feel good about getting through 60% of it, and I know I'll continue on, so I wouldn't call the entire thing a waste. It did give me that push to try. My sidebar info isn't exactly correct; I actually read all the way through Isaiah and had just started Jeremiah. It has been really weird to go to church, because now every time the pastor says "Open your Bibles to verse blah blah blah," I'm like, "Oh cool, I've already read blah blah blah."

This video doesn't do much for me, but the song is a classic. When I listen to it, I just get flooded with high school memories. I like how one commenter put it:

This is REAL music. No stupid fan girls who like it because of how 'hot' the artist is, no auto tune, no fake robot sound effects...just real talent.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that now my classroom is saturated with ants. I think the little bastards are following me.

Too Busy to be Sick

2011-08-30T22:13:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should do a blog entry, but I've been so out of it the last two days. I'll eventually write more about Vegas (maybe), but right now I'll just sum it up by saying it was entertaining on Friday night. sucky for most of Saturday, fun on Saturday night, and so-so on Sunday. Once at home on Sunday night, I started to feel fever-like chills, and by the time I woke up yesterday morning, I was downright sick. I still dragged myself to work, because I had already committed myself to doing a GATE presentation for the staff, plus I had no subbing plans. It was a rough day. The students were great to the point where I never even had to raise my voice, but I just felt so cold and dizzy all day long. I skipped both breakfast and lunch, and barely picked at my dinner. When I came home yesterday, I just collapsed on the couch and laid there for hours. It was heavenly.

This morning I woke up and still felt dizzy and fuzzy, although I was finally able to eat again (hard-boiled egg for breakfast, yogurt for lunch). Yet again I went to work; this time because a bunch of my students signed up for after-school tutoring, and I didn't want to let them down. Plus I had an appointment with my T-shirt guy (he's helping me make my Builders Club T-shirts for the new school year). It's starting to occur to me that I just can't seem to squeeze "getting sick" into my schedule. I'm sorry Flu, please call back at a more convenient time and I will be more than happy to make an appointment for you.

I'm still not quite up to par, but I'm feeling a hell of a lot better than I did yesterday. Plus tomorrow is "Pajama Day," so I'm excited that I get to go to work in my comfy jammies and don't have to worry about looking all professional...especially since I don't feel professional. Lazy and blah sound good to me right now.

Oh yeah, this morning our fire alarm shrieked piercingly through the house at 4:08 this morning. For no reason. There was no fire, no smoke, nothing. It was strange. And a really jarring way to be jerked awake when dawn has yet to even crack.

And unrelated, but our house is over-run by ants. I'm sure a couple of scouts crawled over me while I slept, because they've pretty much permeated every crevice. Fun stuff.

Vegas, Baby!

2011-08-25T22:21:00.000-07:00

I had a terrible Monday and Tuesday, a mediocre Wednesday, and a really good today. I want to say more but I really need to get to bed early tonight. We're leaving straight from my work to Vegas tomorrow and I'm hoping to actually have more energy than a zombie. But I did want to come on here real quick and show you a pic or two of the pool we get to splash around in this weekend.

Can we say Paradise? I am practically giddy with excitement. I'll be offline this weekend, so have a good one!

Adjustment Bureau, Grading Depression, etc.

2011-08-20T23:42:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched "The Adjustment Bureau" for the first time (I had avoided it previously because the title sounded boring), and wow, what an awesome movie. It's suspenseful, romantic, thought-provoking...why didn't someone recommend this movie to me a long time ago? I love the philosophical nature of the movie and the complexity of the characters; how the so-called bad guys *spoiler alert* aren't necessarily as evil as you might anticipate, and how you're not entirely sure through the entire movie who you should be rooting for.

Today I started grading papers at about 9:30 this morning, and I didn't finish until 3:00. That was with Clint helping me to input the scores into my gradebook, or else it would have taken me all day. I'm relieved to be caught up, but I'm starting to feel depressed by the quantity of grading I'm taking home every weekend. I don't mind busting my ass Monday through Friday; I can totally live with that. But I want my damn weekends to myself. Last year I had three really great T.A's to help offset some of the work load, but this year, my T.A's, although very likable and sweet, are a little clueless when it comes to grading.

After conquering that insane heap of papers, I worked on my Japanese Maple painting. It's just about finished, so I might be posting a picture of it tomorrow on my Glazey blog. Once it's touch-dry (which will take a few weeks minimum), I'm going to give it to Shannon. I didn't originally start the painting for her, but she saw it the other day at my house and really liked it. I still plan on painting something else for her in the (distant) future that's especially meant for her, as this one was just sort of a "whatever" project. Last night I sketched out my next painting. I'm really excited about it, but don't know if I'll be able to pull it off. It involves an underwater scene, and I have no clue how to accomplish that look.

Next weekend I'm going to Vegas with my entire family! I am so excited! My parents really know how to have a good time in Vegas, plus my mom, Shan, and I get really silly when we're together anywhere. I still remember going out to dinner with them for Mother's Day over a year ago, and they were scolding me in slightly inebriated, over-loud voices for using a toilet-seat liner when I went to the restroom (haha, TMI--sorry). Apparently this made me some sort of freak-germaphobe. And I, of course, was yelling at them for not using one. Meanwhile, fellow diners were looking at us like...well, the way anyone would look at some crazy person who's carrying on about toilet seat liners in the middle of a crowded restaurant. But these are the types of conversations we end up having anytime we're all together (especially if liquor's involved), and it is what it is.

Ughhh. I feel so blah right now.

Nocturnal Butterfly

2011-08-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

I only slept for a few hours last night, so don't hold me liable for anything weird or random I write. Blogging tired is like blogging drunk. I've never blogged drunk before, but I have facebooked drunk, which I have to say is both hilarious and embarrassing as all get-out when you realize the next day what an idiot you were. You might think that "Damn I wish I could balance on this toilet and why does my reflection look so weird" sounds like a great status update at the time, but things look just a tiny bit different the next morning.

I just realized I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm sure there was a point in there somewhere. Hey, did you know that the spanish word for moth is "mariposa nocturna"? That actually translates to "nocturnal butterfly". I love that. I just think that is the most beautiful spin on what most would consider an incredibly mundane insect. I mean, look at the English version of the word. Moth. One very boring, four-lettered, uninspiring syllable. And unfortunately, it's an apt name that pretty much matches up with the bug itself. Moths are flat, colorless, and uninspiring. They don't even have venom to spice them up. But then I hear the name "nocturnal butterfly," and talk about the glass being half-full...it makes me look at the moth in a completely different way. The whole thing reminds me of "Aunt Beast" from A Wrinkle in Time. Aunt Beast and the rest of her species are very dull and plain in appearance, but they don't need to be anything more, for they are blind and experience an extraordinary reality of their own soley through their senses. Likewise, the moth doesn't have to be pretty. It's a butterfly of the night with its own way of perceiving the world.

But now I'm suddenly thinking that my over-romanticized notions of the moth are going to be really depressing the next time I go on a camping trip and watch one fly straight into the bug zapper. That's gonna suck. No one likes their mariposa nocturna well-done.

Today was good. I had a few strange, melatonin-induced dreams last night, but they weren't terrible, and I actually woke up feeling sort of light and happy. I'd write more but my tired brain is officially going on strike now.

Broken by Lifehouse--Photo Rendition

2011-08-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm too lazy to write about my life right now, plus it's been awhile since I posted a song, so that pretty much adds up to a quick and lazy "music video post." Although technically the clip below is not a music video. The official video for this song actually has much better sound quality than this does, but I opted to post this instead because the little artist in me loves the way the producers combined music with expressive photography (although I wish they had opted for a less gaudy intro and concluding credits). I did have to laugh at the title of this song though, considering that I just posted another song by the same title ("Broken" by Seether) about a month ago. I wouldn't be surprised if readers thought that I was chronically depressed by now. I swear I'm a happy person...93.7% of the time, anyway. At any rate, here is a photographer's rendition of "Broken" by Lifehouse (you may recognize the song from The Time Traveler's Wife). Blogger doesn't enlarge video clips, so if you want to view it full-screen on You Tube, click here.

Indoor Rainbows Strictly Prohibited

2011-08-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Now my friggen' dog is in heat. As if the first week of school wasn't already an adjustment, now I get to come home to horny animals. And I'm sure you can imagine the interesting conversations this sparks between myself and my seven year old. Elijah was playing outside earlier, when he suddenly peeked his head inside the door and said, "Mom, Cricket and Kalzhagi are humping." After recovering from the initial shock of hearing my son's cute little chipmunk voice say the word "humping" (seriously, where did he pick that up from?), I told him, "Thanks for the update bud, but let's come up with a different way to say that." We all brainstormed for a minute. Trinity came up with "making rainbows," and I suggested "playing leapfrog." We quickly ran out of ideas though, and frankly, I was more than ready to change the subject.

But then, about ten minutes ago, Elijah let the dogs in the house. In a matter-of-fact voice he told them, "You two can come in now, but no making rainbows in the house."

I'd write more, but I think I might be on the verge of peeing my pants from laughing so hard, so I better go recover.

Day 2 and Meow

2011-08-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

Day two of school DOWN, 179 left to go! Okay, I'm realizing how incredibly spoiled I am by how few days I actually "work" during the school year...but don't get me started on that tangent, because then I'll start pointing out all of the stuff teachers do outside of the classroom, and it's pretty much an endless rant.

So the first day of school was overwhelming. Large classes, lost students, schedule mix-ups, etc...just your typical welcome-to-middle-school stuff. Although this year there was a new added element of fun, because every student with Mrs. C as their Language Arts teacher had MY room number listed on their schedule, so I had the pleasure of being bombarded with over sixty students every period and having to send half of them to Mrs. C's class. But overall it was an entertaining day. I played a fun game of "Get to Know the Teacher Balderdash" with the kids, and both the students' bogus answers combined with my real ones left us in hysterics.

Today, on the other hand, was much more calm and organized. I actually got to just teach today, instead of trying to deal with schedule errors and redirecting students to different locations. It's still a little early to gauge what kind of classes I will have this year, but so far my students seem lively and interested. Oh, and during the staff meeting this morning, they did a raffle for a great parking spot right at the very front of the school, and I won. I only get to keep it for a month (then it gets raffled off to another employee), but hey, I'll take it.

When I came home from work today, Trinity's teacher from last year called to tell me that Trinity had scored a 600 (out of 600) on her state math test. Her teacher wanted to know if it was okay if she took Trin out to lunch on Friday to celebrate. I am still so shocked by this news! When did Trin get good at math? She's been holding out on me.

The only downfall to an otherwise awesome day is our cat, Meow (try not to marvel at the creativity of her name), is in heat. But the stupid cat's been in heat off and on for like a month. I keep waiting for it to go away so we can get her fixed, but every time I think she's done, BAM--a whole new wave of it hits. I'm not particularly a cat person as it stands, but this heat-thing is driving me nuts. All of the little noises she makes; the half purrs/half meows; while rubbing against our neutered male cat (or the leg of the coffee table) and trying to solicit him (or the coffee table) for the good stuff--it's just downright awkward. I swear I feel like I'm witnessing a feline porno.

I'm tired now, so I'm going to plaster an uncreative title to this entry and go to bed.

Indifference

2011-08-06T22:40:00.000-07:00

Last night I found out that my first step-dad died of cancer. His name was Mark, and he married my mom when I was four. It makes me sad, because I don't feel sad. The only thing I feel about his death is indifference. I'm trying to summon up some emotion...anything...but it's just not happening. I wasn't even going to write about it because I don't really have anything to say, but I thought it was something I should mention.

Clint did remind me earlier that my Miracle of Faith story (my one and only published article) was inspired by events surrounding my step-dad, so I do have that to thank him for. Plus he did give Shannon and me a really nice Christmas one year. But all my other memories of him are sort of unpleasant. I guess at the minimum, I hope that his family and friends aren't suffering as a result of his death.

And that's about all I can muster up for this topic. I tried.

Stuff I Can't Talk About

2011-08-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

This seems a bit anticlimactic since I already posted this on facebook, but Clint passed his black belt test! I would have written about this earlier, but I keep hitting a wall every time I try to blog about it. The promotion ceremony was really really interesting, but I'm not allowed to talk about it. Only friends and family who attended the event are privy to what goes on during the ceremony. Likewise, the black belt test itself was insane--like, insanely insane, but I'm not allowed to share details about that, either. So you can see my frustration. I'm essentially writing an entry to talk about all the stuff I can't talk about. I will say that Clint came back from the test a completely different person. My previously cynical, pessimistic hubby is more confident, relaxed, and upbeat. I'm hoping this effect will last for awhile.

Other than all that, this week has been a blur. I've been in my classroom getting everything ready for the new school year (school starts this Monday), and there is still so much I have to do. I'm hoping I can finish everything by tomorrow, because I really don't want to lose my Saturday.

Okay, this entry is really boring. I'm not feeling any motivation to write. I think I'm feeling a little bit of childish glumness over the fact that summer is already over.

Blogging: My Proverbial Wilson

2011-07-31T15:50:00.000-07:00

It feels a little strange to not have another adult in the house to talk to, but I wouldn't say it's been terrible. The kids and I have actually had a really pleasant weekend. I did find myself constantly fighting the urge to text Clint, just to say this or that, or to see how he's doing. My solution to this was pretty simple. Every time I felt an urge to say something to him, I would just jot it down real quick. In a weird way, I feel like I've been talking to him all weekend even though we've been completely out of touch. I've decided if I were ever stranded on a deserted island, I would be one of those crazy people who'd befriend a coconut or a volleyball named Wilson or whatever just to maintain my sanity. But luckily in the world of technology, I have a computer to fulfill that role.

Here are the little blurbs I wrote to Clint all weekend:

When we dropped you off at the dojo, we had just walked out the door when Elijah cried out, “I miss daddy!” I said, “Dude, it’s been like, 18 seconds.”
It doesn’t really feel like you’re in the woods. It just feels like you’re at work.
Me and Niecy were at La Casita today for four hours. But what’s even crazier is that when Niecy posted a status on our work homepage saying that she and I enjoyed a four hour lunch, the update received 4,866 comments! I took a picture of it just because I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m insanely popular. ;-) Okay, there MIGHT have been a glitch or something…
I wonder what you are doing this very second.
Meow ate Zed’s nose off. Trin actually cried. She said Zed was her favorite pelt. I think Meow has officially lost Trin’s loyalties.
I caught Elijah playing Duo. Don’t worry, I chewed him out, but I think he got a good hour in before I caught him.
We had a thunderstorm with some lightening, but it didn’t amount to anything. Damn it smells good though.
I played my word with only ten minutes to spare! “Zax”. Glad you can’t see my gloating face right now.
This lady in McDonalds is something else. She’s sitting here telling her friends how much she LOVES funerals, because “there’s always really good food.” Gee lady, I’m glad that people die so that you can have a satisfying meal.
I wonder how you’re holding up…
My poor mom! She just called me, drunk. They had to put Buster down (he had cancer) and she’s a wreck. I had to console her for an hour. Even my dad cried. Okay, you can quit rolling your eyes now. ;-) There was also a hailstorm in Silver Lakes, and they lost their power for hours. Remember those days?
Lily got into the house twice today. But I discovered that once she settles down, she actually stops peeing all over the place.
Saw this and thought of you:

Found out that I have T.K's daughter, Sarah, in my honor’s class. Her mom e-mailed me today and said that she was so glad that I was Sarah’s teacher, and “don’t forget to beat her every morning in case I forget.” I told her, “My schedule is pretty tight, but I’ll try to squeeze in daily beatings somewhere between the morning announcements and pledge of allegiance.”
Kids and I just had movie night. We watched 2012. The whole thing was just funny to me, but it was pretty intense for the kids. Probably should have picked something lighter and slightly less apocalyptic.
I just put my pajama shirt on and noticed that it was inside-out. So I took the whole thing off (which was tricky since I had a wet towel on my head), played around with the shirt until I had it flipped the correct way, wiggled it back over the toga-towel and put it back on. So then I go to brush my teeth, and what do I see? The shirt is STILL inside-out. What the hell? Bastard shirt.
Day three and Karfci has reluctantly decided to cuddle with me for the first time. I’m not even sitting in his usual spot. Poor guy doesn’t know what to make of your absence.
Yeah, the cuddling only lasted for about four minutes.
I actually really like the scat mat right now. It makes me feel safe. If an intruder DID break into the house, I don’t think he would be expecting volts of electricity to shoot up his feet while creeping down the hallway.
You’re coming home tomorrow!
Oh damn. It just occurred to me that intruders wear shoes.
Sun, 6:32 a.m.--Got jerked awake by thunder. It is raining like crazy! I wonder if you guys got rained on last night. Wouldn’t that be something…
8:11 a.m.—Still pouring. I’m going to get ready for church. It smells awesome outside.
Time to cook brownies for the potluck. Crossing my fingers that I can get through this without setting off the fire alarm. Luckily I don’t think even I can burn the house down in this weather.

Just Stick with the Weather

2011-07-29T00:51:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling I'm going to be up late tonight, especially since it's a quarter 'til one and I'm still really wired. I wish I could go dancing. Yeah, that's a random little whimsical notion.

My work recently gave me a new laptop, and this evening I was transferring some of my folders from my old laptop to my new one, when I suddenly came across the thread pasted below (last names eliminated, of course). This appeared on facebook over a year ago, and for some reason I saved the entire thing in my "Personal Writing" folder. I really don't know why. Maybe I just thought it was an interesting debate. But reading this conversation again did make me laugh a little. Our poor unsuspecting friend asks one simple little question on her status, and somehow she gets caught in the crossfire of my and Shan's insanity. I'm sure it's one big headache to try to talk to both of us at once...I don't know how anyone does it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Julie So... today is my supposed father's birthday. Should I call?

7 hours ago · Comment · Like

Jodi at 7:05pm July 10

Yes, you should. Life's too short and unpredictable to not talk to your dad, even a "supposed" dad who's probably an ass.

Shannon at 9:02pm July 10

No you shouldn't. You should not feel obligated to fulfill some kind of "good daughter" role just because he happened to be a sperm donor three decades ago.

Jodi at 10:21pm July 10

Do you sense the little angel and devil on each shoulder right now? I won't say which one is which. =)

Josh at 11:13pm July 10

If it were me I would call. Be an example.

Shannon at 12:39am July 11

A man earns his title "dad" by his unwavering commitment to his children. Otherwise, he is just the man who knocked up your mom. So why should the child have to pretend there is a father/daughter relationship that doesn't exist? Why should a child always feel uncertain about her role, instead of just accepting what is? Focus your energy on those who really have been there for you, instead of depleting your energy trying to fit into this preconceived father/daughter dyad that just isn't reality based. Well, unless he suddenly shows genuine remorse and suddenly becomes father of the year--then you can reassess the situation...(Sorry--I just feel adamant about this! And I feel that Jodi and Josh are hopelessly wrong!) =)

Jodi at 1:13am July 11

It's not about trying to fit into some stereotypical father/daughter relationship, it's about gifting yourself with a sense of closure. Right now your dad is still here, but someday he won't be, and when that happens, all of the things you wanted to say to him are just left hanging in the air. I didn't want to have to do this, but Shannon's argument is forcing me to pull out the big guns (oh, and by "big guns" I mean "corny song lyrics"):

"I wasn't there that morning when my father passed away...I didn’t get to tell him all the things I had to say...I think I caught his spirit later that same year...

I'm sure I heard his echo in my baby's new born tears...I just wish I could have told him in the living years….”

Jodi at 1:14am July 11

P.S. Isn't your dad's birthday over now? LOL

Shannon at 1:22am July 11

I am almost certain the term "closure" was invented by psychologists themselves to ensure that prospective clients would be in therapy for years to seek this so-called "closure." There is no such thing as closure, because life is not a movie with an ending, or a book with that amazing last chapter that ties up all the loose ends. There is only acceptance. Society tends to romanticize relationships that should exist, but don't. Just because a man (I am going to be blunt here) injects a woman with his sperm does not mean he automatically feels those paternal instincts, or even CARES. It is what it is, and the sooner the child/victim acknowledges that the non-relationship will never meet her expectations, and resigns herself to this, eliminating ALL expectations, the sooner that child/victim develops inner peace and reduces her anxiety surrounding the situation.

Shannon at 1:23am July 11

Jodi, are we even talking to Julie anymore, or are we just arguing with each other? LOL I am going to bed now, so don't write some brilliant reply back, 'cause I won't be responding, and it will appear as if you won this silly debate. Good night!

Jodi at 1:29am July 11

Well since Julie hasn't chimed in once to this conversation other than the initial prompt (and I'm pretty sure we scared Josh off as well), I think it's safe to say that we are just arguing with each other. And I will accept your going to bed as your resignation to my victory. =)

Jodi at 1:32am July 11

Julie, next time you might want to simply ask about the weather...

Black Belt Test

2011-07-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight Clint starts his black belt test! I say "starts" because the entire test takes four days. At 6:00 this evening, all of the black belt candidates will leave for the mountains. At this point it's hard to say what will happen once they are up there, because all of the black belts who took this test in the past were sworn to secrecy. But this is what we do know:

There is very little--to no--food (I think they get one energy bar a day).
The black-belt candidates wear ONE karate uniform for the entire four days, and are not allowed to bring a change of clothes (not even an extra pair of underwear). The only article of clothing they are allowed to bring is one extra pair of socks.
At least one part of the test involves swimming.
At least one part of the test involves crawling around in the dark (they were required to pack a head-lamp).
If they bring anything that isn't on the approved list, it gets thrown in the trash.
They will be sleeping on the ground. A "pillow" is NOT on the list.
Last year's black belts came back from the test blindfolded, filthy, and exhausted.

The irony is Clint just opened up a fortune cookie yesterday that said, "Get away from home awhile to restore your energies." I'm not sure, but I'm thinking this getaway sounds like the exact opposite of "restorative."

On my end, having Clint gone for four days is nothing out of the ordinary, but the fact that we can't communicate the entire time is something new. He's not allowed to bring his cell-phone, so I will be left in complete mystery as to how he is holding up.

On Sunday, at 6:00 p.m., Clint and the other guys will arrive back to the dojo for the Black Belt Promotion Ceremony (and no, they do not get to shower first). At this time, all of the candidates who passed the test officially receive their black belt, and then they are required to take a punch in the stomach from every sensei in the dojo, which can range anywhere from a dozen to twenty. The ceremony concludes with family and friends enjoying a potluck.

I told Clint this morning that "Today is your day. Anything you want to do, we'll do it." He's laughing because he says I'm treating him like he's about to die. At any rate, "Clinton's Special Day" includes World of Warcraft, Chinese food, and ice-cream, so I better get my butt moving.

Barrage of Photos

2011-07-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

Wouldn't it be great if Blogger allowed you to embed slide shows within a post? Then I could avoid mile-long entries such as this one. Shoot, I would just settle for Blogger letting me put photos side-by-side; that would be a huge space-saver. I was going to imbed these photos within my last post in a way that followed the so-called "storyline" of our vacation, but I decided I'm not that ambitious. That being said, here is a very LONG stream of vacation pics. I suppose I could edit out some more, but I'm at Starbucks staring at tiny versions of these pics, so I'm just going to throw these on and be done with it.

Somehow the butts seem like the perfect way to symbolize the end of this photo stream (they were watching a squirrel, by the way).

Back to the Desert

2011-07-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

We got home from our vacation two days ago. I love Idyllwild! It was my first time camping there, and that place is a hidden treasure. Well, not hidden from the thousands of tourists who I'm sure visit the area each year, but hidden from me up until last Saturday. In July the temperatures are from the low- to mid-80s. It's gorgeous. I'll try to give the "short" version of our camping trip (HA), or else this entry will end up being a mile long. I have lots of pictures too, but they're on my other computer, so I'll try to add them to this post later.

On Saturday we arrived to the campground. Our campsite backed right up into the forest and had these huge rock structures. The kids spent that first day climbing the rocks and using them as their castle/fortress. We also went swimming, explored the campground, and played Boggle and Yahtzee. Unfortunately, Clint has officially added Boggle to the list of games he will no longer play with me.

Sunday we decided to have a picnic at Lake Fulmor. Again, it was so beautiful. After our picnic, we went to the town of Idyllwild where they were having their annual Lemon Lily Festival. We cruised all of the little mom and pop shops, treating ourselves to some frozen yogurt and a few souvenirs. At one point we passed this tiny realstate office, and right in the front there were two baby raccoons hanging out on top of a cage. The owner said I could pet them. They were so sweet and soft. One of the babies took my hand between his paws and cuddled with it, refusing to let go. Apparently the owner rescues various animals and releases them into the wild once they are old enough. Anyway, despite the hours we spent at the festival, I never did figure out what a lemon lily is.

Monday we spent the day at Soak City in Palm Springs. It was incredibly fun, although the 108 degree weather forced us to stay in the water pretty much every minute. We spent most of the day in the wave pool, which is my absolute favorite. I love hopping on the inner tubes and letting the waves crash me all over the place. When we weren't in the wave pool, we were in the lazy river. Or the water playground, where the water was freezing. But in light of the scorching heat, it felt really good.

Tuesday we had a "day at camp." We relaxed, read books, and swam at the pool all day. A family had moved into the campsite right next to ours on Monday night, and they had two kids close to Trin's and Elijah's age. So the four kids played together all day while Clint and I sat around like lazy slugs. It was awesome. That night, we roasted marshmallows with a bunch of people who were camping with their church. Being out in the middle of the woods at night, talking and laughing with people you barely know...it was really something. Around midnight that night, once we were asleep in our camper, Clint was awakened by loud noises outside. It turned out to be a huge raccoon ransacking our ice chest. He actually lifted the lid to dig through the contents. Luckily we had moved our food back into the camper's fridge, so there was nothing in it but trash. He did find a Caprison though. He laid it on the picnic table and squeezed it with his paw, lapping up all the juice that squirted out. Smart little critter. Those suckers don't even need opposable thumbs. Even though I'm sure it's not recommended, Clint and I left scraps out for the raccoon the next night, hoping he'd come back. He never did, but the squirrels enjoyed the scraps.

Wednesday we went into town one last time to visit a local coffee shop and go to this little hole-in-the wall cafe for lunch. When we came back, we decided to go hiking on some of the nature trails. While we were hiking, Clint and Elijah saw a big red snake right before it slithered quickly under a rock. I wanted to lift the rock so I could see the snake too (yes, I realize I have zero sense), but logic kicked in at the last second and I decided I better not. After our nature hike, we went swimming. That night we got together with the same folks from the night before and made s'mores around a campfire. We all hung out until around 10:00, and then we headed back to our camp to put the kids to bed.

Thursday we ate breakfast, broke down camp, and headed home. I can't describe how dis-spiriting it felt to leave that beautiful forest behind, only to enter the brown, dry furnace that is our desert.

The funniest moment of the trip was when Clint got attacked by a big ferocious beast. He left the RV one night to take the trash to the dumpster, and I suddenly heard him shouting and making a commotion outside. I peeked outside of the RV, and he was swatting around his face like a madman. The trash bag in his hand had busted as a result of all his flailing, with trash strewn haphazardly all over the ground. He also broke his key chain. It turns out the source of this spectacle was a June bug. Clint freaked out when the little fella (okay, he was sort of big) flew right up into his face. It was just so funny, this big guy, almost a black-belt, being taken down by a June bug. Oh, be right back....

Okay, I'm back. I had to take a quick break from typing because Clint left to pick up Trin from her friend's house, but he left Metheusal, one of his WoW characters, logged in. So of course I had to sneak in there and strip him of all his armor. Clint just got back home to discover Metheusal sitting around in boxers. Heehee. That's what he gets for not logging out.

Okay, back to camping. This is so unoriginal and cliche, but the one thing I love about camping is how you can take a step back from the pressures of life; from technology, from computers and blogging and facebook, and just enjoy the simple little things. I loved waking up every morning to the cool air, sipping my hot tea amongst the pine trees while watching the squirrels play. And it was those little moments that stood out. Walking to the showers at night, or laughing around a campfire, or freaking out when Clint growled outside the camper, pretending to be a bear. Maybe I'm only saying this because I'll never be able to afford a trip to say, Paris, but I would never trade the experiences of camping for any glamorous destination. I guess I'm just not a fancy, hotel-dwellin' girl. Luxury does very little for me. Experiences do.

Off to Idyllwild

2011-07-15T00:44:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we were supposed to leave for Arizona to visit the Grand Canyon for a couple days, and then camp in Cottonwood for another three or four days. That was until we discovered that the temperature in the Grand Canyon is supposed to be right under 100 degrees, and 103 in Cottonwood. I have a high tolerance for hot weather, but leaving our triple digit paradise to vacation somewhere else that's equally hot seems to defeat the purpose. So this morning we cancelled our reservations in Arizona and decided to go to Idyllwild instead. I'm excited! We planned out several fun activities, including a tram-ride up into the mountains and a day at the water park. Plus the temp is supposed to be in the mid-80s, which is perfect for swimming, etc., but not overly hot. I'll be sure to post some pics when we get back home. Until then, whether you're in California, Kansas, Colorado, Texas--okay, this could go on for awhile--let's just skip the other ones and say have a great week!

Opalista's Crummy Spider-Killing Skills

2011-07-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

Elijah loves World of Warcraft, but he never really gets higher than a level 14. At that point, once the quests start getting too hard for him, he just creates a new character and starts all over again. I'm not into WOW, but he begged me the other day to create a new character so I could play with him. I said "No, no, NO!" until he finally bribed me by offering to do some chores.  At last, I relented, and created Opalista, as seen here on the left, and her pet, Snookums (I like to give my WOW pets tough, ferocious names). Now Elijah's current character, Bluebanshee, was already a level 10, so Opalista needed to catch up to him pretty fast. I'm unmotivated, and again, not much into online gaming, so I talked Clint into leveling her up for me.

After awhile, Clint finally gets her up to a 9 or a 10. I go into the office to see how he's doing, and find him happily killing spiders in a cave with the help of some centaur chick. I sit down with him for a few minutes, when suddenly he realizes that it's time to leave for his fight class. He passes the keyboard over to me and says "Here, finish this quest really quick."  I panic and tell him, "Oh no, no way. I'll die." He reassures me by saying, "No you won't. It's really easy. You just have to kill three more spiders and then the centaur will transport you out of the cave."

Okay, I can do this. I do, after all, dabble in WOW once in awhile over summers when Clint twists my arm to play with him, and this is just a little tiny level 10 quest.  So Clint leaves, and I take over.  Three minutes later, I call his cellphone.

"What's up?" He asked.

"I died."

"What?! How is that even possible?"

"I was shooting a spider, and it kept swaying back and forth, saying 'evade, evade,' so I moved in closer and fell down a pit."

See? This is why I don't do online gaming. In real life, if I want to kill a spider, I wouldn't end up falling into a pit and turning into some spooky little glowing orb searching for my own corpse.  Online gaming stresses me out.

That being said, I think I'll log in for a few minutes and take Shimmer, my level 21 night elf, out for a spin. It's time for her to visit her poor, neglected, giant pet spider and killer moth anyway. Fluffy and Flutterbye are probably hungry.

P.S. If you are ever playing WOW and run into Opalista in the Shadowsong realm, there's a 50% chance that she's actually a dude.

Amnesia Foam

2011-07-08T00:17:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how we are creatures of habit? Like most married couples, Clint and I have slept on the same side of the bed for probably the entire duration of our marriage. Even after those times when we moved into a new house, we still ended up claiming our usual hemisperes of the bed. So, naturally, it was a little bit of a surprise to me the other night when Clint suddenly announced that we needed to switch sides for a few weeks; maybe longer. The rest of the conversation went as follows (me pink, Clint blue):

"Why?"

"Because the memory foam on my side of the bed won't pop back up anymore, and it's creating a dent on my side of the bed."

"So you want me to sleep in your dent?"

"Well, yeah. If we switch for awhile, then it won't be so weighted down and it'll be able to return back to its normal shape."

"Unless you broke its memory and it's permanently squished. Who's to say that it'll ever recover? And now you want to take my perfectly good side of the bed and squish it flat too?"

"Nahh, it'll be fine woman. Come on, switch with me."

"Uh uh. You made your little pit of despair, now you've gotta lie in it."

I feel a little mean now about the whole thing, but I can't help it...I love my side of the bed. It sinks in just the right amount, and then pops right back up every morning, fluffy and inviting. It still remembers me. I don't want to sleep on Clint's side of the bed, trapped in his big ole' amnesia-ridden hole. I know, I'm a selfish brat. But I guess it's habitual for me to be that way. Maybe I'll go to Target tomorrow and buy him a really comfy pillow...or something.

From Old to New

2011-07-01T20:06:00.000-07:00

I was going to add these pics to the end of my last post, but that entry was already pretty enormous. So here is my new Bible, although as characteristic of most photos, it looks better in person. It's made from a two-toned Italian leather, and feels very sturdy, yet soft. That leather ribbon in the front is actually green; not yellow (I'm not sure why it looks yellow here). The edges of the pages are silver, like the print on the front. It's a bummer that I have to cover half of my name for the picture, but it's sort of a necessary evil for me since I don't share my full name on this blog.

I've already cracked the spine. :)

Nice, large print!

Even though I love this new Bible, my old childhood Bible will always be the one closest to my heart.

I can't believe I'm finally retiring it. It feels sort of bitter-sweet. I wonder if my Great-Grandmother had any idea how much her gift would come to mean to me over the years.

Random Updates

2011-07-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging from Starbucks right now! I guess that's not altogether exciting, but I've never posted a blog entry from anywhere other than home. I did do work from a computer here before, about four years ago when I had to clear my credential. I remember I had to come up with eleven more items for my teaching portfolio, and my exit interview was that evening around 5:00 or 6:00. I had to take the whole day off, and I finished all of my work at Starbucks. But back then they charged for their WiFi; now it's free! Awesome. I might come here once or twice a week while the kids are in their karate class.

The rest of this entry is going to be really boring. I'm just going to give updates on various things. Here goes:

Bible Challenge: I'm currently on 2 Kings and have officially read 590 pages, although my page-count just jumped up due to switching Bibles. Yesterday, I went shopping with Teri, and ended up buying myself a brand-new Bible. I figured it would make a good congrats-gift to myself for sticking with this challenge (one month down, two more to go!). Thus far I have been using a Bible that my great -grandmother gave me for Christmas in 1988, and for the most part I have been content with it. But it is a child's Bible, complete with colored illustrations, not to mention the book is absolutely thrashed. All of John and a chunk of 2 Corinthians completely fell out, and my grandpa had to use his book-binding machine to glue them back in for me about six months ago. But yesterday, while browsing through all of these beautiful new Bibles, I finally broke down and decided a "grown-up" Bible sounded really appealing. I found the one I wanted and purchased it for $55. I know. Ouch. But it is so beautiful, and has a larger print that I can actually read without squinting. Plus it has my name engraved on it in a pretty, silver script. I might take a picture of it before posting this entry. I am so crazy about it. But, like I mentioned earlier, it did change my page count. My last Bible contained 1,048 pages; this one contains 1,969 pages. It was thrilling to see my page-count jump up by 150 pages or whatever it was, but then a little bit of a let-down when I realized how many pages I still had left to go. Anyway, my favorite book of the Bible so far is 1 Samuel. Certain parts of that book actually made me burst out with laughter, like when King Saul is trying to kill David, but everyone he sends to kill him ends up stuck in the city as unwitting prophets (it would be like cursing a really sarcastic, rude person to only being able to say sweet, sugar-coated things). Finally, he decides to go to the city and kill David himself, but ends up prophesying too. The whole thing was like the Bermuda Triangle, except for instead of a triangle, it's a city. And instead of people mysteriously disappearing, they turn into prophets. So I guess there is really no resemblance between this story and the Bermuda Triangle whatsoever.

Bookworm Challenge: I'm pretty much ditching it. Which is sort of ironic considering that I've finished reading ten books. But I know I'll never get around to writing the reviews. Plus I discovered an awesome site for book lovers: Shelfari, and I'd rather use this as my venue for keeping track of books and reviews. If you love to read, I would encourage you to check it out. It is SO user-friendly. I might even have Trinity create a Shelfari account since she loves to read so much.

Manuscript: I'm still at two chapters, plus part of the prologue. Both Shan and Clint have been helping me come up with more ideas, and I'm getting more excited, but still not accomplishing as much as I should. I'm going to post an excerpt from one of the chapters soon.

Changes on this Blog: You *might* have noticed that I figured out how to swap out backgrounds on this blog. It's just a quick little manipulation of HTML, and now that I know how to do it, a monster has officially been created. Now I'm going to want to change my background every few weeks. The only problem is, I still haven't figured out how to stretch the background from end to end, which leaves an annoying line where the graphic begins to repeat. I have tried every thing I can think of to fix this, so if you are handy with HTML and want to e-mail me with some suggestions, I'd really appreciate it.

Blog Award: The Powerful Woman Writer Award was given to me via e-mail by a YA author who I stumbled upon through Shelfari. The blogging community is obviously a small world, because I came across her again on Kristyn's book blog (offering her a Best in Books award, or something to that effect). I know this fellow blogger gives out a ton of these things, so it's not anything special, but it still made me smile and I decided to display it for awhile. Plus her blog offers a lot of insight for anyone aspiring to publish for the young adult market. I added her button, "A Story Book Blog," to the bottom of my screen.

Art: I worked on my Japanese Maple yesterday, although now it's more of a Japanese Cherry Maple hybrid (those exist, right?). Since it's been three months since I've painted, I pretty much think what I added yesterday sucked, but Clint assured me it looked good. And since husbands always tell the truth....

Holidays/Vacations: We’re spending Independence Day at the lake with Shannon’s family (of course), but fireworks and such are actually on July 2nd. In mid-July we’re going on a week-trip to Arizona. Two of those days we’ll spend at the Grand Canyon. Then, not so exciting, but in August we’re going to Vegas for three days. The only thing that makes this Vegas trip worth mentioning is: 1. By some miracle my entire family can make it (Mom/Dad, Grandma/Grandpa, Shan/Jeremy), and 2. The hotel we’re staying at (Flamingo Hilton) has an amazing pool.

Okay, I think that's it for boring updates and my cafe vanilla frappucino is now empty, so I'll post this now. I'll try to add the picture of my new Bible later, once I'm at home.

Cajun Sunblock

2011-06-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

I went to the lake today with my sister. It was a gorgeous day: bright blue sky, beautiful pine trees, the whole works. After getting settled on the beach and sunblocking the kids, Shan asked me if I would spray her down with some of my sunblock. I asked, "Are you sure? It's SPF 50," thinking that she might want to get a little bit of color on those albino legs of hers. But she insisted that she didn't care about a tan, so I coated her with sunblock. Meanwhile, I misted tanning oil all over myself (which only has an SPF of 4), because I'm more shallow and not health-conscience when it comes to things like that. I just want the tan.

A few hours later, as we were getting ready to leave, I noticed that Shan's arms and legs were sunburned as all get-out. She was absolutely fried. I, on the other hand, was sportin' a nice golden tan without the slightest trace of a sunburn. How the hell did that happen? She was wearing SPF 50. I was wearing SPF 4.

So just a quick word of caution: If you're looking for a reliable sunscreen, you might want to stay away from Banana Boat's Ultramist Spray-On Lotion. When they say "SPF 50", what they really mean is "Sun Penetration Factor 50 times worse than you'd expect." Or in layman's terms, "Scorched Pretty F***ing bad" (the 'b' is dropped for posterity).

I think next time we'll just slather Shan's legs with good ole' saturated beef fat. Or maybe spray her down with some non-stick canola oil. Maybe THAT will work out better for her than Banana Boat's cajun-style "sunscreen".

Extreme Bible Challenge

2011-06-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, this Bible challenge thing. I keep saying that I will say something more official about it, so here goes:

I am challenging myself to read the Bible in 90 days. It all started on May 31st when I was updating my Bookworm Challenge list. I had just crossed off my seventh book and begun my eighth, when a very eloquent thought suddenly occurred to me. It sounded something like this:

This is stupid.

The thing is, I already love reading. So how can challenging myself to do something I already love doing possibly be considered a "challenge"? That's like challenging a junk-food addict to consume a dozen twinkies a week. Don't get me wrong, I still love having a yearly book list (especially over summer) to keep track of the novels I have read or intend to read. But I'm just done pretending that it's actually a challenge for me to read twelve books a year. So then, naturally, I asked myself this question:

What would be a challenge?

That's when a lightbulb sort of went off (or is it on? I may have butchered that expression). The Bible. It has always been my biggest literary adversary. I've tried several times to read it, and generally have no issues getting through Genesis and Exodus. But once I hit Leviticus (and don't get me started with Numbers), I start to drown in all those laws and eventually lose interest.

So why would this time be any different?

In the past, I was never on any schedule. My reading the Bible was contingent upon my interest in what I was reading, so inevitably I would eventually drift away. But once I determined that I for-sure wanted to read the Bible, I jumped online to see if I could find any reading schedules to help keep me on track. There was a slew of year-long schedules, but I wanted something shorter to keep me motivated. With Google's assistance, I found a Bible-reading challenge that offered a printable schedule to allow anyone interested to read the Bible, cover to cover, in 90 days. This shorter time constraint gives me a sense of...panic, for lack of a better word. A year-long Bible challenge gives me too much leeway to skip a day here and there, until eventually I get into a cycle of not reading. But a 90 day challenge doesn't offer much wiggle room. You miss a day; it's over. It's nearly impossible to catch up (trust me, I've had the misfortune of already discovering this).

Some churches actually offer official 90 day challenges for their congregations to participate in, hence the logo above, and this one from last year:

But they start such challenges right after the New Year, and end them by March 31st. Unfortunately, since summer is my optimal time to do mass-reading, I am forced to do this challenge alone. That's the only downfall I am experiencing so far. I would love to be able to discuss what I'm reading with others, especially when I'm feeling confused by some of the verses.

Below, I am keeping an ongoing list of the books of the Bible as I finish reading them. This will be really boring for anyone else to read; it's just a personal reference for me for motivational-purposes. I'm planning to link this page to the "Bi90 Eleven" logo on my side margin, so I can continue to add on to this list. Wish me luck--or better yet--more self-discipline than I currently possess!

**************************

Start-date of Challenge: June 1, 2011
End-date of Challenge: August 30, 2011
Date each book was completed:

Genesis: June 4
Exodus: June 7
Leviticus: June 11
Numbers: June 15
Deuteronomy: June 17
Joshua: June 19
Judges: June 23
Ruth: June 23
1 Samuel: June 26
2 Samuel: June 28
1 King: June 30
2 Kings: July 2
1 Chronicles: July 5
2 Chronicles: July 8
Ezra: July 8
Nehemiah: July 10
Esther: July 10
Job: July 12
Psalms: July 23
Proverbs: July 25
Ecclesiastes: July 26
Song of Songs: July 26
Isaiah: In progress

Heart Tattoos and Throwing Stuff

2011-06-21T23:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight was our small group meeting, but due to busy summer schedules and the fact that none of us made it to the church service this weekend, we decided to play games instead of doing an actual Bible study.  After eating dinner, we played Taboo. Before beginning the game, we drew for partners; Clint ended up partnered with Steve, Matt with Alana, and me with Becky.  Becky is competitive, plus very expressive and patient with giving clues, so we made a great match and ultimately won the game.  But the part of the game that stands out the most was when Steve was trying to get Clint to guess the clue "records" (I think).  Steve prompted, "A doctor might look up your---" and Clint immediately exclaimed "Colon!" Everyone was like, "Wow Clint, your last doctor's appointment must have sucked."

Becky had to leave right before 8:00, so at that point we quit the game and moved into the living room to chat. We somehow got into a conversation about tattoos.  Every one of us has at least one tattoo, with each one including a background story (except for mine. Mine's boring and has no significance).  So Matt was sharing with us one of his tattoos: a tribal-looking image on his upper-back (a past drunken mistake).  While emphasizing the randomness of that particular tattoo, Alana chimes in with the fact that the image even has a heart in the middle. At this point, Matt's entire face lights up with surprise, and he exclaims, "What? There's a heart?!" and takes off for the bathroom. We all just exploded with laughter.  He had no idea that his tattoo contained the shape of a heart in the center, and the expression on his face was priceless. Eventually he came back into the living room, and Steve took a nice close-up picture of it with his cell phone so that Matt could see it clearly.  Meanwhile, we were all crying with laughter. Needless to say, Matt decided that he will be getting his precious little heart tattoo covered when he can; possibly with an eagle. I personally think he should keep the heart. It's much more entertaining.

After we recovered from the whole tattoo ordeal, we eventually found ourselves talking about the stuff we have thrown at our spouses through the course of our marriages. Between all of us, we have thrown everything from remote controls to mealworms to acoustic guitars (sorry, that one was actually "lightly kicked", according to said-person, not thrown). The whole conversation was so damn comical.  I don't know exactly when we stopped sugar-coating our lives to each other, but it makes for some interesting conversations. Seriously, my small group is full of a bunch of crazies. No wonder we get along so well.

Crashed Barbecue

2011-06-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

I'm still feeling just a tiny bit off today. Can't seem to shake it.

Yesterday evening I went to Shan's house to offer her some moral support for a graduation barbecue that she was throwing for Madi. The barbecue began at about 7:00 p.m., and was still going on (more or less) when I left around midnight. I was going to stay the night, but there were already too many people crashing there, and I would have been lucky to get even a piece of carpet to sleep on. At any rate, the party went really smoothly for the first few hours (note the foreshadowing), other than a tiny bit of tension due to exes being trapped in the same house together. There was a ton of awesome food, and we all enjoyed a couple glasses of wine and some good conversation. I dragged Shan into the livingroom to play "Just Dance" with me, and that was a lot of fun.*

Sometime around 11:00, Shan's father-in-law crashed the party (enter: drama). He created a big scene that resulted in the cops being called. I guess the whole thing should've phased me more than it did (Shan kept apologizing for everything), but it really just reminded me of scenes from my own childhood. Guess I'm a little too comfortable with chaotic environments.

At around midnight, things seemed to be calming down, and I decided to leave. I don't know how it happened because I've been to Shannon's house a million times, but somehow I turned off the wrong street and got lost. Those mountain roads are incredibly dark at night, and with all of those sharp turns and curves, it's easy to get disoriented. Especially if you're me and already have crappy night-vision and no sense of direction. The kids were in the car with me, and after about fifteen minutes of turning this way and that, it started to feel spooky. I tried to make it an adventure for the kids, but inwardly I was starting to feel nervous. My cell-phone had no reception, and my brain was scrambling, trying to think of what the protocol is when you're trapped in a maze of dark trees in the middle of the night. Thankfully I did eventually find my way back to a main thoroughfare. But then I almost hit a skunk. After that, it was smooth-sailing the rest of the drive home.

Tomorrow we're leaving for a trip to Camarillo to visit my paternal grandmother (my real dad's mother). Shannon, Jeremy, and the kids are also going, and we're all staying at the same hotel, so it should be a lot of fun. I am nervous though. I don't know my grandma very well, and I feel a little shy around her. Plus she has never met my kids before. Well, I take that back...she did see Trinity once at a funeral. But Trin was a baby back then. Elijah she has never met. She has never met Samantha or Shelby either. Overall this is a pretty big visit.

I guess I've rambled on long enough.

Broken

2011-06-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've been punched in the stomach. I just found out that my friend's husband committed suicide. She and I met through kickboxing two summers ago and bonded right away...probably because we were both going through the same torture together, and we both taught English. Their daughter is in the same karate class as Trinity, and her husband is--was--a bit of an artist who enjoyed making pottery, amongst other things. He gave us these for Christmas:

It was a completely random gift; I don't think he had any clue that I was an avid hot-tea drinker when he gave these to us. You can see from the stains that they have been well-used in the last six months, but now I feel strange just looking at them. The man that created these mugs used those same hands to take his own life.

I'm not going to try to make my friend's tragedy my own. But my heart hurts for her right now, and I hurt for her daughter, who no longer has her dad. I feel shocked and horrified that suicide has touched the lives of people I care about. I hate this feeling. I need to go hug someone. And then curl up and take a nap.

Tortoises, Microwaves, Bees, etc.

2011-06-14T22:47:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago I had another dream featuring Clint's sister, although this time, she wasn't really a major player in the dream. I was in her classroom, and on the counter was a tortoise habitat, complete with a heat lamp, plant-life, and two desert tortoises. Amanda was in a neighboring room talking to some parents, so I went over to the habitat and picked up one of the tortoises. I held her for a moment, but then, suddenly, I lost my grip and dropped her. She landed on the hard linoleum floor and her shell shattered. Half of the shell cracked off completely, vertically, from head to tail. I felt devastated. The poor thing looked pitiful, with half of her tender, fragile body exposed to the world. I carried the broken tortoise to Amanda to show her what I had accidentally done. I can't recall her exact words, but I do remember that she wasn't mad, and I was surprised by her understanding.

Then, last night, I dreamt that my sister broke her wrist while changing some tubes in her microwave. I never saw the accident happen, but I saw a facebook status update written by Shan. It stated:

I broke my wrist while changing some tubes in my microwave.

Do microwaves even have tubes? Anyway, that was the end of that one.  The dream was only about five seconds long. But I did get on facebook when I woke up to check and make sure no one had broken anything.

In waking news, yesterday was my and Clint's 13th anniversary. I actually forgot that it was even approaching until two days prior; Clint forgot completely until I told him. We still managed to get his parents to babysit last night while we went out to a nice dinner. And he brought me home a box of Lucky Charms, which was really cute. It was my favorite cereal back when we first started dating, and sort of has an inside story all of its own. Yesterday I also went to lunch with Sarah, and we talked for over three hours while the kids played. The time flew by so fast...it felt like it was only a half hour.

Despite how packed the day was yesterday, parts of it were actually a little emotional for me. Shannon has been talking to our paternal grandmother, and she learned some little tidbits about our biological dad that she shared with me. None of it was anything big, but compared to the little scraps of him that I currently have, it felt big to me. After hearing what she told me, I felt so strange and off for the rest of the day. Not in a bad way at all. I can't really explain it. Then when we went to pick up the kids from Clint's parent's house, Carey and I were talking about my Bible challenge, when he showed me a Bible that Clint and I had bought for him over ten years ago (I had long-forgotten about this book). He had read the entire book in a year. He started right before Clint and I moved to Wisconsin, and right before Shan moved to Oregon.  During that year, he had scratched things that happened throughout the year in that Bible, along with other notes and thoughts. I read the things he had written, and it made me cry. Well, I managed to keep the tears sucked into those shrimpy tear ducts of mine while I was there, but I was just about losing it inwardly. The things he had written...I never knew how much he cared about me, or my sister. And what a humble, spiritual man he is.

Eventually I'm going to give more details about the Bible challenge, but this entry is already getting long, so I'll just give a quick update. As of today I've completed Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and about a third of Deuteronomy. So far the most difficult chapter has been Leviticus. The easiest chapters have been, of course, Genesis, and the first two-thirds of Exodus (Exodus does get pretty challenging toward the end).

As far as my manuscript, I now have the majority of two chapters written. But, unfortunately, they are not the first two chapters. For some reason, my brain doesn't seem to want to piece this thing together in the correct order.

Today I took the kids to the park to go swimming, but it sort of sucked. The pool was over-crowded, plus they had way too many rules. I mean, I get the whole "No running/No diving" thing, but the lifeguards were blowing their ear-piercing whistles every time you splashed, carried each other in the water, "crowded" the stairs, etc.  They may as well have posted a sign that said "No having fun."  After swimming and lunch (we went to McD's dripping wet and reeking of chlorine), I made an outdoor habitat for Shelly, because she was starting to outgrow her tank. This required shoveling dirt, and it was hot today. Digging holes in the sun definitely does NOT build character. It just makes you cranky and thirsty.

Oh, one more completely unrelated thing. While we were driving to Soledad Canyon, we ran into an entire flock of bees. I'm cursing myself right now because I know it's not called a "flock" when you are referring to insects, but I can't remember what it's called. "Drove", maybe? Anyway, we ran into a--SWARM, yes!!--of bees, and of course they all smashed right into our very large windshield (think RV windshield, here). So we had hundreds of little bee carcasses plastered onto the glass right before our eyes, with no way of avoiding looking at them, because we're driving. So (I know I keep saying "so", but I'm lacking other good transitions right now) Clint turned the windshield wipers on, pushing the button on the side to spray some fluid. But the fluid refused to come out (even though he topped it off before we left on the trip), and the dry wiper blades ended up smearing bee guts all across the glass, with no way of washing it off. At this point, we could barely see out of the windshield. Basically a bad problem just turned worse. We were still miles away from a gas station, so Clint ended up having to douse the window with water from a water bottle, and then use the wiper blades to wash the remains away. Moral of the story: Don't run into bees! It is very, very gross.